Hong Kong could be easing up on flight bans, class suspensions and quarantine periods for travellers a month earlier than planned, with the city’s leader conceding that the public’s tolerance for harsh anti-epidemic measures was “fading”.
Many of the measures up for review were supposed to last until April 20, with adjustments now expected to be announced as early as Sunday.
The government is also expected to announce whether a controversial mass testing scheme will proceed, and if so, how it will be carried out.
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Use mainland help well, plan ahead in pandemic fight, top official tells Hong Kong
Speaking at her daily press conference on Thursday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said it was time for the government to undertake a “midterm review” of its current measures, after political and medical heavyweights urged authorities to offer a road map for transitioning to the next stage of the coronavirus epidemic.
She revealed that an announcement on updates to the anti-epidemic measures was likely to come on Sunday or Monday.
“I’m working [on] it day and night to find the optimal solution for Hong Kong,” Lam said, referring to a plan for the city to reopen to the outside world.
“The time has come, not because the number of cases has come down significantly – they are actually now at a high-level plateau – but I have a very strong feeling that people’s tolerance is fading. I have a very good [feeling] that some of our financial institutions are losing patience about the isolated status of Hong Kong.”
On Thursday, Hong Kong confirmed 21,650 new coronavirus cases – including 13,022 through rapid antigen tests – bringing the city’s overall tally to 996,862.
Health authorities reported 289 deaths, including backlogged ones, involving patients aged between 20 and 104. The number of Covid-related fatalities stood at 5,136.
Lam hinted that the government would relax the rule requiring travellers to the city to spend 14 days in quarantine, given that fully vaccinated close contacts of local coronavirus patients were only required to isolate for a week, provided a rapid antigen test taken on days six and seven returned a negative result.
“In terms of consistency, there is a very strong basis for us to apply more or less the same rule to arrivals. But we just need a bit more time,” Lam said.
She added that capacity of public hospitals would also need to be taken into account when drafting plans to reopen the city to international travel.
While rumours have circulated that the government would launch a compulsory universal testing programme on March 26, Lam said on Thursday that the government had never publicly mentioned such a date, adding that officials had been refining the plan since late February.
A source clarified that March 26 had been considered as a potential start date for the universal screening exercise, but the plan had changed after leading mainland Chinese epidemiologist Dr Liang Wannian visited Hong Kong earlier this month.
“Based on the discussions with Liang, the universal testing exercise should only be carried out when we reach three- to four-digit [daily] case numbers in the city,” the source said.
Lam’s remarks came a day after Xia Baolong, director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, called on the local government to plan for the next phase of the outbreak in an orderly manner during a high-level meeting on the city’s coronavirus situation.
Xia said in the meeting – the second in the last week – that the plans should adhere to the strategy of “three reductions, three focuses and one priority”.
The first element refers to reducing infections, severe cases and deaths. The second involves three specific areas of focus: boosting vaccinations among the elderly and enforcing closed-loop staffing arrangements in care homes; strengthening the work of clinics, hospitals and isolation facilities; and identifying high-risk premises for children, seniors and the disabled, and stepping up protections there.
The final priority, meanwhile, is treating elderly residents.
Hong Kong leader’s daily Covid-19 briefings ‘may undermine credibility instead’
Hospital Authority chief executive Tony Ko Pat-sing noted on Thursday that seniors currently accounted for more than 70 per cent of inpatients being treated for Covid-19, up from about 50 per cent previously.
Given the surge in elderly patients, Ko said the medical services on offer at the makeshift treatment facility at AsiaWorld-Expo would be strengthened now that a team of mainland health care professionals had arrived to reinforce local staff there.
“There is a need for us to increase the manpower at the AsiaWorld-Expo so that we can provide sufficient nursing care to patients who are elderly and bedridden,” he said. “We have also conducted a review and will see if there is any area that we can improve in our medical procedures and support.”
He added that he hoped the second batch of 300 mainland medical practitioners arriving in the city on Wednesday could begin work as soon as possible.
Lam, meanwhile, said she was saddened by news that three elderly patients at AsiaWorld-Expo had died, but stressed that it was not for lack of treatment.
“The patients who died were aged 89, 92 and 98, respectively. They had chronic diseases and were not vaccinated. Although they died, that does not mean that we did not provide them with nursing care,” she said.
Government pandemic adviser and University of Hong Kong (HKU) Professor Yuen Kwok-yung has also called on the administration to formulate a road map for the next stage of the outbreak as soon as possible so the public could have some idea of when their lives might return to normal.
In an opinion piece co-authored with two HKU colleagues and published in the Chinese-language daily Ming Pao on Thursday, Yuen called for a series of measures aimed at preventing infections while also loosening certain restrictions.
The suggestions included enforcing double-masking, allowing mild Covid-19 patients to stay at home, letting close contacts continue to go to work if they tested negative, and resuming more international flights to allow vaccinated business travellers and Hongkongers to come to the city.
He also suggested that the government could gradually relax social-distancing measures once 95 per cent of residents were fully vaccinated.
Lam, however, appeared reluctant to adopt that threshold, saying on Thursday that such a move could be counterproductive.
“If we could only relax social-distancing measures or border restrictions at the 95 per cent vaccination rate, I’m afraid it would lead to anxiety among more people,” she said, adding that imposing the threshold would effectively leave the government’s hands tied.
Lam noted it would take a long time for the city to be 95 per cent fully inoculated unless daily vaccination figures rose substantially.
About 40,000 people a day were receiving their first dose of vaccine in late February, but that figure has gradually dwindled since then, dropping to around 8,000 on Wednesday.
Currently, 91 per cent of Hongkongers have had at least one dose of vaccine, and 81 per cent have had two. However, only 56 per cent of residents aged 80 and up have had their first dose.
On Friday, Lam will be joined at her daily press conference by Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong, who is expected to talk about support for the unemployed.
More from South China Morning Post:
- Coronavirus: Hong Kong facing shortage of coffins, funeral offerings from mainland China as Shenzhen lockdown restricts cross-border traffic
- Coronavirus: Hong Kong gym owners ‘losing hope’ as tough Covid-19 restrictions threaten more than 150 fitness outlets across the city
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