Coronavirus: Hong Kong mulls rescue plans for residents stranded in Hubei province
- Pledge comes after newspaper decries official response and announces plans to charter its own rescue plane
Hopes were raised on Saturday for needy Hongkongers stranded in the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak as the government said it was willing to look into ways to get them home, after a newspaper decried the official response and announced plans to charter its own rescue plane.
The move to get city residents out of mainland China’s Hubei province – where the contagion began late last year – also followed lobbying by a pro-democracy legislator.
“We are actively following up with related government departments and health experts to set up feasible plans to bring back stranded Hong Kong people in Hubei as soon as possible, especially groups with special needs, in batches,” a government spokesman said on Saturday.
“We welcome and thank people from society for bringing up useful advice and expressing their willingness to assist.”
Oriental Press Group, owner of one of the city’s main Chinese-language newspapers Oriental Daily News, used a front-page article to say it was willing to charter a flight to bring back a Hong Kong woman who was 30 weeks pregnant, as well as local elderly people and children.
“The pregnant Hong Kong woman contacted the government a week ago, but the government has no reply,” the newspaper said, lambasting what it said was a lack of an official plan to bring back more than 2,500 Hongkongers stranded in Hubei, which has been in lockdown since the outbreak of the virus, which causes Covid-19.
