SAFE FOR CITY TO SCRAP FLIGHT SUSPENSION RULE, EXPERT SAYS

Covid-19 adviser cites plentiful hotel quarantine space and low risk posed by arrivals testing positive

Hong Kong’s flight suspension mechanism should be scrapped as current quarantine measures are enough to reduce the risk of Covid-19 spreading in the community, a government pandemic adviser has said, as the number of new cases fell to a three-month low.

But Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch, yesterday warned a rebound in infections was possible following the easing of social-distancing curbs, especially the end to the ban on international travellers.

“The caseload has been decreasing since the peak in early March to 300 today, but we still have to observe [the situation], as we have been slowly [easing] the social-distancing measures,” Chuang said. “The increase in [the flow of people] and gatherings may cause a rebound in cases.”

Officials reported 300 Covid19 infections, 22 of them imported, and five deaths. It was the lowest number of cases since February 4, when 131 were recorded.

According to Dr Lau Ka-hin, a chief manager of the Hospital Authority, 1,339 patients were still receiving treatment in public hospitals and other facilities. Five of them were in critical condition.

The city reopened to foreigners yesterday after being cut off from most of the world for more than two years due to tough pandemic curbs. But all arrivals will have to be quarantined at a hotel for a week.

Government pandemic adviser Professor David Hui Shucheong said that even if Omicron outbreaks were still prevalent around the world, imported cases from other countries did not pose a serious threat locally.

“I personally think the flight suspension mechanism can be lifted,” he told a television show.

“As the epidemic here has subsided, we now have a lot of hotel rooms available [for quarantine]. Also, even if you come back from overseas, you have a week of quarantine and a week of medical surveillance, so the suspension mechanism does not serve a huge purpose [in preventing outbreaks].”

The flight suspension rule was also eased, with the threshold for triggering the mechanism raised from three infected passengers to five – or 5 per cent of capacity – while the length of the ban was cut from seven days to five.

Hui noted there were still a few cases of travellers testing positive on the 12th day of their arrival after seven days in quarantine, but their CT values were high, meaning they could no longer transmit the virus and were of low risk.

Hui is the second government adviser who has called on authorities to consider dropping the flight suspension mechanism. Last week, Professor Ivan Hung Fan-ngai cited adequate protection from testing and quarantine measures as reasons to forgo the restriction.

But Hui warned that the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong’s suggestion to replace hotel quarantine with home isolation was still “risky”.

“We should remember that a Cathay Pacific crew member brought Omicron BA.1 into Hong Kong as he went out during home quarantine and no one was tracking him,” he said. “Last year, the children of a Saudi Arabian consulate member were infected and also went out to Taikoo Shing, so it is important to understand how risky home quarantine is.”

Chuang warned the number of imported cases was expected to rise as more flights arrived.

“Whether the travellers are Hong Kong or non-Hong Kong residents, there will not be a huge difference in terms of imported cases as they all returned from overseas,” she said.

Former secretary for food and health Dr Ko Wing-man also warned that as social-distancing rules were eased before the number of new cases dropped to zero, a rebound in infections was almost certain.

“I am not saying the rules should not be relaxed, but people have to understand that in some Western countries, which have never had zero cases, when social-distancing rules are relaxed, there is a rebound in cases,” he said. “So we cannot say the makeshift isolation hospitals and facilities are not necessary now.”

Ko added that another variant with higher transmissibility could also emerge and trigger a surge in infections, so the public should adhere to anti-epidemic measures, such as wearing masks.

To relieve the strain on healthcare resources, the Hospital Authority previously converted its 23 outpatient clinics into designated clinics to treat Covid-19 patients with mild symptoms. About 120,800 patients have been treated at the clinics.

Lau said authorities would review the clinics’ manpower levels and operation arrangements based on the development of the pandemic, adding that more details about the resumption of outpatient services would be released soon.

“Some services at these clinics have been suspended, such as medical consultations in the evenings, on Saturdays and Sundays. We will first resume these services … and gradually convert these clinics back to outpatient ones,” he said.

Lau added that during the peak of the pandemic, half of public hospital beds were being used for Covid-19 sufferers but had since been released for other patients, while some nonemergency services, such as elective surgeries, gastroscopies and colonoscopies, had resumed.

Hong Kong has recorded a total of 1,204,510 Covid-19 cases and 9,313 related deaths.

Even if you come back from overseas, you have a week of quarantine and a week of medical surveillance

PROFESSOR DAVID HUI

Beijingers are facing tighter restrictions in an attempt to prevent a large outbreak and avoid a citywide lockdown similar to Shanghai. Individual buildings and housing complexes with Covid-19 cases have been sealed off, while riding public transport and visits to most office complexes and tourist sites now require proof of a negative PCR test within the previous 48 hours. All restaurants in the capital were closed to dine-in customers from yesterday until the end of the Labour Day holiday on Wednesday. And authorities are pressing on with testing as a negative result will be needed indefinitely to enter public facilities in the city when residents head back to work and school after the five-day break. Photographers from AP, Reuters, AFP and Xinhau caught the changing mood.

Photo: Sam Tsang Foreign passengers arrive in Hong Kong yesterday after the government eased restrictions that had cut the city off from most of the world for more than two years.

Residents hug behind a barricade at a locked-down residential complex in Beijing.

A queue at a makeshift testing site in the Galaxy Soho complex. Most of the capital’s 21 million residents are being screened for the virus.

From above: extreme hygiene measures at work at a swab collection site in Beijing; customers walk past near-empty shelves at a supermarket in Chaoyang district; and a health worker employs a loudhailer to remind residents to wear their masks and keep their distance as they line up to provide saliva samples.

From above: people queue at swab collection sites in the capital; and a medical worker takes a sample from a boy in Fengtai district during one of the three rounds of mass testing for the coronavirus.