No Concession On Relaxing Flight Suspension Rule: CE

Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Saturday dismissed reports that her administration was making a "major concession" by planning to loosen the flight suspension mechanism.

Her remarks came as local media reported that lobbying from the aviation industry had resulted in the government deciding to further relax the suspension order, under which authorities can stop an airline from flying from a specific destination to Hong Kong for two weeks if several coronavirus infections emerge from the same flight.

"We have no plans to substantially reduce or relax the rule, because this rule is needed in order to meet the fundamental objective of preventing the importation of cases, especially when a lot of countries and places have significantly relaxed many of their epidemic measures," Lam told a press briefing.

"We are not contemplating any major concession. As a matter of fact, this is a public health, infection control measure. This is not a tug of war between the Hong Kong SAR government and individual airlines."

But the CE promised to further increase the supply of quarantine hotels, and said that health authorities would give more details in due course.