Coronavirus: 2 weeks’ quarantine for Hongkongers returning from mainland China after scheme suspended as city confirms new local case
- With Return2HK scheme on hold, residents must undergo 14 days’ isolation and five rounds of testing, except those coming from Guangdong
- Construction worker is confirmed as positive case, breaking city’s nearly two-month run of no community cases
The government’s announcement came as an official source told the Post that a Hong Kong construction worker would be confirmed as a local unknown case on Thursday, breaking the city’s streak of nearly two months of zero local infections.
Under the Return2HK scheme, as many as 5,000 residents are allowed to enter the city each day without undergoing quarantine after taking a Covid-19 test at least 72 hours before their arrival. But with the suspension, they will now need to spend 14 days in isolation at home and submit to five rounds of testing.
“People who have applied for quotas to return to Hong Kong under the Return2HK scheme beforehand will not be exempted from quarantine,” a government spokesman said, adding that those affected would be notified through mobile SMS.
Even as the city tightened border arrangements, authorities were acting to contain a possible threat from another source: a 13-year-old girl who was deemed a close contact of a case that sparked a cluster of the Delta coronavirus variant in Macau that had forced the city to order mandatory testing of all residents.