Coronavirus: Hong Kong pinning border hopes on vaccination, preventing local cases, but Guangdong official says reopening unlikely before March

A higher Covid-19 vaccination rate and a sustained zero-infection streak are believed to be among the prerequisites for Hong Kong resuming quarantine-free travel with mainland China, experts and a pro-Beijing heavyweight say, but an official across the border has said the status quo is unlikely to change before March.

Local National People’s Congress Standing Committee delegate Tam Yiu-chung said on Wednesday that he was optimistic that getting 5 million people vaccinated by the end of the month would be enough to convince the central and Guangdong governments to relax the restrictions, even though authorities across the border have not set a concrete inoculation target for Hong Kong.