1,300 HK residents seek help, but no plans to evacuate from Hubei

The government says it has received hundreds of requests for help from Hong Kong people stuck in Hubei province, but it has no immediate plan to evacuate the 1,300 or so residents trapped, RTHK reports.
Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Patrick Nip said today that the government will carefully assess the risks of bringing them back to Hong Kong, and will liaise with mainland authorities on any arrangements.
Asked if the government could follow the example of some overseas places and arrange a chartered flight to bring these residents home, Nip said officials are still assessing the situation.
"They are scattered in more than 30 cities in the Hubei province. The furthest is a 10-hour drive from the Wuhan city. Many of them are there to visit their relatives, so we have to carefully assess the public health risks to see if any movement is appropriate for them,” he said.
Nip added that these residents would have to be quarantined for 14 days after they came back to the city, but there are only 90 units in the government’s three quarantine camps.
He said the government has set up a hotline for the stranded residents, to answer any questions they have related to health matters.