Pandemic Rules To Further Ease In May As Planned: CE

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday that the government will stick to its plans to further relax social distancing measures in the latter half of next month, saying Hong Kong is on the path to resuming normal activities after being hit hard by the fifth Covid wave.

Government vaccine adviser Ivan Hung said on Sunday that the SAR could afford to ease pandemic rules sooner if daily Covid infections fall below a hundred.

But speaking ahead of her weekly Executive Council meeting, Lam said she is going to keep to the original time frame.

"We will continue to press ahead with the three-stage relaxation that I have announced on March 21, unless there is a sudden surge in Covid-19 infection cases, but that looks quite unlikely based on our observations and the experts' advice," she said.

"The second stage is intended to take place about a month from the first phase, that is maybe the second half of May, so this is the plan at the moment."

The CE also noted that from May 1, non-Hong Kong residents will be allowed to fly in from overseas, and more leeway will be given to airlines who carry infected passengers.

To facilitate a possible surge of arrivals, Lam said another nine hotels currently serving as community isolation facilities will be used for quarantining inbound travellers, providing around 3,000 rooms in total.

But she stressed that the government will not ease travel restrictions any further for now, despite calls from business leaders to allow home quarantine for arrivals and for the flight suspension mechanism to be scrapped completely.

"These are still very important measures in order to reduce the importation of infected cases into Hong Kong, especially when many places are already removing their restrictions and social distancing measures," she said.

Lam again voiced concerns over what she described as an unsatisfactory vaccination uptake among children aged three to 11, as well as the over 70s, saying some 400,000 people in these two age groups are yet to receive a single dose.

She added that the SAR administration and government advisers have done their very best to persuade people to get inoculated and that the vaccine pass arrangement is already the greatest incentive for them to do so.