Coronavirus: Hong Kong’s border control rules untenable, Carrie Lam says, while city logs 1,276 cases
- Lam says members of business sector are losing patience with city’s strict entry curbs
- ‘If the city is still sticking to the existing border control measures in the coming half-year, or by the end of this year, I will be a bit worried,’ Lam says
Hong Kong’s entry restrictions due to Covid-19 are untenable and the city should decide whether to fully reopen to the world by the end of this year to revive its economy, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has said.
During a televised interview on Sunday, Lam also acknowledged that members of the business sector were losing patience with the entry curbs and little time remained to decide whether to ease the measures.
“There is less time to make the decision. If the city is still sticking to the existing border control measures in the coming half-year, or by the end of this year, I will be a bit worried,” she said.
Health authorities recorded 1,161 local Covid-19 cases and 115 imported ones on Sunday, bringing the total number of infections to 1,226,569, while related fatalities rose to 9,395, after two additional deaths were reported.
An outbreak within the police force’s anti-terrorism unit saw one more asymptomatic infection, bringing the number of cases in the cluster to 23.