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Hong Kong to Ban Flights From the Philippines, India, Pakistan

Hong Kong will designate the three countries as “extremely high-risk” amid the second wave.

Hong Kong to Ban Flights From the Philippines, India, Pakistan
A Covid-19 testing center set-up at the Hong Kong International Airport. (Photographer: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg)

Hong Kong will ban flights from India, Pakistan and the Philippines for 14 days starting from Tuesday as the city reported the first two cases with highly transmissible virus variant in the community over the weekend.

Visitors who have stayed in the three countries for more than two hours in the past 21 days will also be restricted from boarding any passenger flights to Hong Kong, the government said on Sunday, adding the countries are now classified as areas of “extremely high risk.”

The bans stem from a circuit breaker arrangement that Hong Kong has instituted, which was triggered for each of the countries as there had been five or more arrivals with the N501Y mutant coronavirus strain within seven days, it said. The strain was first detected in South Africa.

The moves come after Hong Kong reported the first two cases of a mutant coronavirus strain in the community over the weekend, another hurdle in the city’s efforts to bring ongoing waves of Covid cases fully under control. Officials are trying to convince skeptical residents to get vaccinated -- seen as key to re-opening the economy and reviving travel.

Neighboring Macau will also require visitors who have been to the three countries to quarantine for 28 days at a designated place upon arrival, according to a government statement.

Compulsory Testing

Hong Kong quarantined 81 residents of a building in a densely populated Kowloon neighborhood on Saturday, after a man who had traveled to Hong Kong from Dubai initially tested positive for a mutant strain of Covid-19.

Hong Kong has imposed a compulsory testing order to people who visited places that had been patronized by the two people infected with the strain at any time on April 11, including parts of the massive Harbour City shopping complex in Tsim Sha Tsui.

“As one of the local cases with unknown sources announced yesterday involved the N501Y mutant strain, we have to conduct more extensive compulsory testing,” the government said.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.