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https://scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3171516/coronavirus-hong-kong-carrie-lam-pledges-review-flight
Hong Kong/ Society

Coronavirus: Carrie Lam pledges to review Hong Kong flight suspensions, says reopening border with mainland China still ‘priority’

  • City leader says government looking at possible changes to flight ban ‘without compromising our border-control measures’
  • Health authorities report 12,240 Covid-19 case, the lowest single-day tally since February 25
Hong Kong’s leader has pledged to review the route-specific flight suspension mechanism. Photo: Yik Yeung-man

Hong Kong could further reopen its borders by relaxing a long-running rule that bans airlines from flying any route that brings in too many passengers infected with Covid-19, the city’s leader has revealed, as the daily number of cases continues to fall.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor also stressed on Wednesday that resuming quarantine-free travel with mainland China was still the government’s main goal despite the recent suspension of plans for a citywide compulsory testing drive, a move many in the pro-establishment camp argued threatened the reopening.

“I can make it very clear that resumption of travel into the mainland remains a priority,” Lam said. “My government will spare no effort to achieve that objective by meeting some certain prerequisites.”

Hong Kong on Wednesday confirmed 12,240 Covid-19 cases, including 7,990 infections logged by people who tested positive through rapid tests. Officials also reported 205 related deaths, including 35 backlogged ones. The city has recorded 1,088,150 infections and 6,569 related fatalities since the start of the pandemic.

Covid-19: Hong Kong to open schools, lift flight ban, cut quarantine time and suspend mass testing

03:30

Covid-19: Hong Kong to open schools, lift flight ban, cut quarantine time and suspend mass testing

Daily infections have been falling steadily since last Wednesday, when 29,272 were recorded, and the latest cases were the fewest since February 25, when 10,010 were reported.

But Dr Edwin Tsui Lok-kin, controller of the Centre for Health Protection, cautioned that despite the falling numbers, the public must remain vigilant.

“We should not think the epidemic has come under full control when the figures drop, as we know there could be fluctuations,” he warned.

About 70 per cent of residents aged 70 or older had received one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine and the government aimed to increase the figure to 90 per cent by the end of next month, he added.

Earlier this week, authorities unveiled a blueprint to relax a host of pandemic-related measures, including ending flight bans on certain countries, halving the time arrivals must spend in quarantine, resuming face-to-face classes in schools and suspending plans for the controversial mass testing drive.

The suspension sparked an outcry from some pro-Beijing legislators, who viewed the testing as essential for reviving travel with the mainland. Lawmaker Junius Ho Kwan-yiu went so far as to say he was considering moving a no-confidence motion against Lam.

But Hong Kong’s leader on Wednesday reiterated that compulsory mass testing was still a “feasible option” for cutting transmission chains once the current wave of cases had subsided.

“We lacked the capability to use this tool in the initial stage of the outbreak,” Lam said. “The next chance is once the pandemic eases to a certain level, when we are looking to identify the remaining cases and curb the transmission chains, mass testing would be an option that can be considered.”

Airlines, the tourism industry and domestic helper agencies have been urging the government for months to ease travel restrictions that have hurt their business. In early January, the government banned flights from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United States, over fears of imported cases, and added Nepal to the list on February 12.

The bans were on top of a rule, last tightened in December, suspending any airline route that brings four or more infected passengers into the city within the space of a week. Since the start of the year, authorities have issued more than 40 such route suspensions, each lasting two weeks.

But the government announced earlier this week it would scrap the nine-country ban on April 1, and Lam on Wednesday revealed she was open to modifying the criteria for route suspensions.

Authorities could simply limit the weekly number of affected inbound flights or relax the number of infected passengers that triggered the suspensions, she said.

“We know the problem, and we are looking into how we can solve this without compromising our border-control measures,” she said.

Hong Kong Tourism Association executive director Timothy Chui Ting-pong agreed the government should increase the number of infected passengers allowed on each flight.

“This is a very stringent measure,” he said. “It makes it very difficult to arrange for people to return to Hong Kong in an orderly fashion.”

Dr Joseph Tsang Kay-yan, co-chairman of the Medical Association’s advisory committee on communicable diseases, argued Hong Kong should scrap the route suspension mechanism, given the threat imported cases posed was less serious than local transmission chains.

“Given that the passengers are fully vaccinated and undergo rapid antigen testing for seven days [in quarantine], the risk of having some positive cases go undetected and enter the community will be much less than the risk [that already exists] within the local community,” he told a radio show.

“Only when incoming passengers test positive with a new variant of the virus and it keeps happening will the suspension mechanism play its role.”

Hong Kong’s community isolation facilities, how do they work?

02:48

Hong Kong’s community isolation facilities, how do they work?

But arrivals should be required to have received three vaccine doses instead of the current two to provide better protection against Omicron, he said.

Lam said her administration had been working to provide more designated isolation hotels for travellers in anticipation of a surge in travel interest. A check by the Post on Tuesday found that only four of 43 designated quarantine hotels had rooms available in April and just seven others only vacancies in May.

Elsewhere in the city, the sixth newly constructed isolation facility will open in Yuen Long on Thursday. Within a week, all of the facility’s more than 2,000 units and roughly 8,000 beds should be available to take in infected residents with mild or no symptoms.

A government source said the facility would be managed by hundreds of customs officers, with a workforce of more than 1,500 medical staff, cleaners and security guards. All workers are required to show daily proof of a negative result from a rapid antigen test. The other facilities had an average occupancy rate of 85 per cent as of last Friday.

Additional reporting by Rachel Yeo, Sammy Heung and Clifford Lo