Coronavirus: ‘Hong Kong delays plan to ease rules on vaccinated arrivals, fears move will jeopardise cross-border travel with mainland China’

The government was last week preparing to allow arrivals from high-risk places to enter the city, provided they had reliable proof of vaccination

But officials have postponed the idea, which critics had warned could undermine talks with Beijing on resuming quarantine-free cross-border travel

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Passengers arriving at Hong Kong International Airport wait to be taken to a quarantine hotel. Photo: Felix Wong

Elizabeth Cheung,Lilian ChengandWilliam Zheng

Published: 6:18pm, 20 Jul 2021Updated: 12:37am, 21 Jul 2021

The government has postponed its controversial plan to allow fully vaccinated people from places at high risk of Covid-19 into Hong Kong, fearing the move could jeopardise reopening the border with mainland China, the Post has learned.

Sources said Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor told her top advisers on Tuesday the easing slated to take effect this week had been put on hold and resuming quarantine-free travel between Hong Kong and the mainland would remain the top priority.

“The chief executive thinks it is still very risky to allow vaccinated residents to return from these ‘high-risk’ places at the moment, as there were cases with variants from time to time,” one insider said. “These imported cases would also affect the border reopening plan with the mainland.”

Neither would the city move immediately ahead with a long-awaited travel bubble with Singapore. After pledging in June that the idea would be reviewed this month, authorities said the recent surge in cases in the country remained a concern and the plan would be revisited again in late August.

Hong Kong’s aggressive pandemic-control measures, while economically painful, have resulted in a six-week run without any local infections, and the government is regularly assessing countries in terms of the risk they pose as sources of imported cases.

The city currently bans arrivals from eight countries – Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa and Britain. Travellers must first stay in another country for at least three weeks before being allowed to enter.

But as the Post reported last week, officials intended to allow in fully inoculated residents and workers from the eight nations provided their jab certification was reliable, as well as unvaccinated students stranded in Britain.