Starting Thursday, the city will no longer ban arriving
airline flights just because they’d brought in passengers infected with
COVID-19, the government announced.
“The new measure is a decision made by the government after
careful review of relevant data and taking into account the current peak period
for international students returning to Hong Kong,” a government spokesperson
said.
Previously, a five-day flight route ban was imposed on
airlines if at least five passengers or 5% of travelers — whichever is higher —
tested positive for the coronavirus on arrival. That caused about 100 flight
cancellations since the beginning of the year.
The announcement noted that most imported COVID-19
infections could be detected by the coronavirus tests at the airport and in
hotels.
The flight suspension rule had “little effect” on preventing
imported infections and the risk of those cases causing infection in the
community are “relatively minimal,” the government said.
Travelers had griped that the regulation’s last-minute
flight cancellations also affected quarantine hotel bookings. Those impacted
often had to postpone their rescheduled trips for weeks because hotels tend to
be booked out months ahead.
Despite lifting the flight bans, travelers arriving in Hong
Kong will still need to test negative for the coronavirus before arriving in
the city, serve a mandatory quarantine period of seven days in a designated
hotel in Hong Kong, and undergo a series of rapid tests and nucleic acid tests
for the coronavirus over a two-week period.
Hong Kong leader John Lee and health authorities have said
they are exploring options to keep Hong Kong open to international travelers,
including a possible reduction of mandatory quarantine periods. -AP
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