Potential Guangdong Covid-19 outbreak could put Hong Kong’s long-sought border reopening with mainland China in jeopardy
- Guangdong reports two Covid-19 infections involving man and woman who had visited several venues and taken an internal flight; province also detects its first Omicron case
- Hong Kong’s No 2 official John Lee and three ministers meet Guangdong counterparts in Shenzhen to further refine logistical details of reopening
Hong Kong’s long-awaited border reopening with mainland China could be jeopardised by a potential Covid-19 outbreak in Guangdong and the province’s first Omicron case, even as the city plans to offer more BioNTech booster shots from next month to step up protection.
Later in the day, Guangzhou identified the province’s first Omicron case, making it the second imported infection of the heavily mutated variant on the mainland. The first case was identified in Tianjin city on Monday. But the Guangzhou infection might be less of a worry as the man was self-isolating when he tested positive.
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“While the imported Omicron case found in Guangzhou is of some concern, the patient has been under closed-loop management since he arrived in China,” said a Guangdong health official familiar with the border-reopening arrangements.
“So far all of the people who took care of the case tested negative. So the risk of spreading is not high.
“The two Dongguan cases are a bigger concern as they have many close contacts. We have traced and contacted most of them. They have already been sent to centralised quarantine facilities. Now we are waiting for the test results of these close contacts.”
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Asked how the situation might affect Hongkongers on the mainland planning to vote in Sunday’s Legislative Council election at polling booths set up at three border checkpoints, the source said: “As for the Hong Kong people living in Guangdong, they will need to follow lockdown and quarantine arrangements.”
A Hong Kong official familiar with Covid-19 control measures said polling arrangements at the border had not been affected at the moment.
Quarantine-free travel under the border reopening scheme – initially limited to Guangdong – was originally expected to launch later this month.
Hong Kong’s Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu and three ministers leading the health, security and IT bureaus met their Guangdong counterparts in Shenzhen again on Tuesday to further refine logistical details of the reopening.
“The two sides … reached consensus on various fronts and allocated work on the detailed arrangements in preparation for resumption of quarantine-free travel,” the government said in a statement on Tuesday evening.
Arrangements at border control points were discussed including quarantine procedures, crowd control and contingency measures. The Hong Kong side also gave updates on the city’s health code system – a Covid-19 risk status indication mechanism required by mainland officials as a precondition for the travel scheme. More than 460,000 people have applied for an account for the code since it was launched last Friday.
Earlier, the mainland source said Guangdong authorities were watching the latest Covid-19 developments “very carefully” as they might “affect the border opening process”.
“We are still working towards the original timeline, which is about a week to go. But it still depends on the overall situation,” the source said.
“If there is no cluster outbreak, border opening and the border voting arrangements will see little disruption. If there is a cluster outbreak, it will make sense to open the border after we contain it.”
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Ahead of Covid-19 testing on Monday, the pair visited venues such as a wet market, a karaoke lounge and restaurants.
The mainland official said 65 other passengers were on the same flight from Xian to Shenzhen as the duo. Of those, 42 stayed in Shenzhen after landing.
A total of 190 cases were reported in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan during the most recent outbreak, which started on May 21.
Dongguan authorities have activated an emergency response to the latest cases, with all residents of locked-down Dalang required to get tested for Covid-19.
All passengers at Shenzhen airport who have been to Dongguan would also need to present a negative Covid-19 test result obtained within 48 hours before boarding a plane, starting on Tuesday morning.
Across the mainland as a whole, officials confirmed 51 new local cases on Monday.
The Omicron case should not upend the border reopening plan if no local spread in Guangdong occurred, respiratory medicine specialist Dr Leung Chi-chiu said.
“It depends on whether there is any evidence of infection among home contacts [of the patient] in the coming week as the case was found after 14 days of quarantine in designated places and one day at home quarantine,” he said. “If there is no evidence of local spread, there should not be any problem.”
Government pandemic adviser Professor David Hui Shu-cheong had few concerns, saying: “It hasn’t spread to the community, what’s the fear?”
With Omicron posing a growing threat and vaccine protection waning after a few months, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Tuesday said the government aimed to give out booster shots to all BioNTech recipients in early January, as long as they met age eligibility and a minimum interval between second and third doses.
But the chief executive stopped short of revealing if the city would follow in Britain’s footsteps by shortening the waiting period between the second and third shots from six to three months. To date, a third dose of the drug has only been offered to those in high-risk groups, such as the elderly and those with chronic diseases, or residents who have taken two jabs of the less-effective Sinovac vaccine.
Hong Kong on Tuesday also confirmed its eighth imported Omicron case, involving a 50-year-old man who had visited Tanzania, South Africa and Kenya. The man, who was among two confirmed cases on Monday, tested positive during quarantine at the government’s Penny’s Bay facility.
The city also confirmed five new imported Covid-19 cases, including a domestic helper from the Philippines who was likely to be a re-positive case. The cases brought the city’s tally of confirmed infections to 12,495, with 213 related deaths.
Seven more countries, including Bahrain, Hungary, Oman and Slovakia, will be moved to the Group A high-risk list on Friday after Omicron cases were detected in each. Visitors will be banned from entering Hong Kong, with only fully vaccinated residents allowed in.
A source said a plan to move Britain to the highest-risk category, with enhanced-quarantine measures for arriving residents, was unlikely to be announced on Tuesday as discussions on its implementation were continuing.
Meanwhile, from Wednesday, certain airport workers, including those handling transit passengers and duty staff in VIP lounges, will be subject to Covid-19 testing every two days. The tightened Covid-19 screening for high-risk groups is among measures brought in to satisfy Beijing’s requirements for border reopening.
Additional reporting by Victor Ting, Gary Cheung and Chris Lau
