Hong Kong ‘to tighten rules for arrivals from Singapore, Taiwan and Japan’

[The_King]

Hong Kong will tighten travel restrictions for arrivals from Taiwan and Singapore as they struggle to battle a surge in coronavirus infections, while Japan is also likely to face stricter measures, the Post has learned.

All three places would be classified as “high risk” under the city’s vaccine bubble travel arrangements from midnight, an aviation insider briefed on the matter said on Sunday.

Hong Kong has succeeded in driving down its Covid-19 caseload into the low single digits but mutations of the virus continue to spread, with a four-month-old baby confirmed as the youngest person in the city to locally contract the more transmissible coronavirus variant first identified in South Africa.

 

Health minister Professor Sophia Chan Siu-chee also warned that more residents needed to be vaccinated against Covid-19 to ensure the city could negotiate travel bubbles with mainland China and foreign countries.

 

 

Hong Kong’s borders have been mostly shut since February last year, bringing tourism to a standstill and further pummelling the economy.

 

Taiwan recorded 206 new local cases and Singapore confirmed 38 on Sunday, while Japan’s caseload was more than 6,000 on Saturday for the fifth straight day.

 

Unvaccinated travellers from all three places will have to undergo quarantine at designated hotels for 21 days and present proof of a negative coronavirus test before boarding their flights.

 

Vaccinated people must quarantine at government-designated hotels for 14 days and self-monitor for another seven days, with compulsory testing on the 16th and 19th day. They must also present proof of vaccination and a negative virus test before departing for the city.

On Saturday, the government announced it would require unvaccinated travellers from Taiwan to undergo hotel quarantine for 14 days and vaccinated ones for seven days, where previously they were allowed to quarantine at home.

 

Arrivals from Singapore, which was considered a low-risk country under vaccine bubble arrangements, would be required to undergo 14 days of hotel quarantine if they were unvaccinated, and seven days if they had been immunised.

A much-anticipated travel bubble with Singapore that was set to launch this month is expected to be delayed due to the city state’s rising number of infections.

Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan. Photo: Winson Wong

Arrivals from Japan would be required to quarantine at a hotel for 21 days in they were unvaccinated but people who had taken shots against Covid-19 would only be required to undergo 14 days. They were not previously required to show proof of a negative virus test.

 

The four-month-old infant was among four new cases confirmed by officials, with the three others involving arrivals. The baby, infected with the B.1.351 variant believed to be 50 per cent more transmissible than the original version of the virus, was linked to a 31-year-old nurse previously confirmed to be carrying the mutation, according to health authorities.

The woman was a friend of a 29-year-old engineer from Dubai who became the first locally detected case of coronavirus mutation on April 17 and was tied to a cluster of infections that has grown to 11.

 

The infant was the 14th person to have contracted a Covid-19 variant in the city, with the previous youngest being a 10-month-old baby.

While Chan offered no fresh incentives for residents to boost the lacklustre inoculation drive, she said resuming international travel without compulsory quarantine hinged on how many people got the jabs locally. 

 

“Many people have said there should be more incentives for vaccination … while some people are adopting a wait-and-see approach,” she told a radio programme. “But if we don’t have a good immunity barrier, we don’t have a sufficient basis to talk to the mainland and foreign countries about reopening travel.” 

As of Saturday, some 1.15 million people, or 15.3 per cent of the city’s population, had received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine

, and 772,200 of those had also received their second.

Authorities on Saturday also reported the city’s first local untraceable infection in seven days. The case, involving a four-year-old boy, prompted quarantine orders for more than 20 children, staff and family members connected to a local kindergarten. 

Chan on Sunday described the boy’s case as worrying.

Even though the city’s fourth wave of Covid-19 infections had been largely brought under control, she added, the discovery of the new case meant the government still needed to keep a close eye on the local situation before further relaxations of social-distancing measures could take place. 

“The basis for returning life to normal is vaccination,” she said.