Return of BA flights from Heathrow

British Airways will resume flights from London to Hong Kong from Monday after the SAR allowed vaccinated residents to return from the United Kingdom.

This comes with Hong Kong authorities reclassifying countries previously listed as "extremely" or "very high" risk - including Britain, India and the Philippines - to "high risk." That allows vaccinated Hongkongers in those countries to return.

BA has announced its direct passenger service from London's Heathrow Airport will restart on Monday.

And there will be 10 flights from Hong Kong to London every week from Tuesday, with all departing in the evening for the benefit of people traveling to other UK destinations or Europe via Heathrow.

People who had booked a flight earlier can change the date and destination or even cancel a trip.

Back on the ground in Hong Kong, authorities counted four more imported Covid cases with arrivals from Germany, France, Thailand and the United States, taking the SAR's infection tally to 12,020, with 212 deaths. Three of the people have been vaccinated fully.

A 54-year-old man who arrived from France on Sunday was found to be carrying the L452R mutation, linked to variants including the highly infectious Delta strain. He received both doses of the BioNTech vaccine in Hong Kong on March 23 and April 13 and tested positive for antibodies last month.

A 60-year-old domestic helper from Thailand who received both Sinovac jabs in Hong Kong and a 31-year-old male crew member from Germany also carried the L452R mutation. They arrived on Sunday.

And a 34-year-old man was confirmed to be infected while in quarantine at the Ovolo Southside hotel in Wong Chuk Hang after arriving on Friday. He had BioNTech shots on March 20 and April 12 in Hong Kong.

The SAR also had less than five preliminary positive cases yesterday.

At the same time Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was saying Hong Kong must create an anti-pandemic barrier before a fifth wave of Covid threatens.

She noted that "the fourth wave of the outbreak has come to an end" so the need is to prevent a fifth by stopping the virus from spreading in the community.

"Hongkongers must make good use of this valuable window period," she said, urging people to get vaccinated as soon as possible.

If there is a large-scale outbreak, she added, authorities will focus on testing rather than the vaccination program.

"If a fifth wave hits Hong Kong we will not be able to vaccinate a large number of residents even if we have the jabs."

Lam noted that more than 3.5 million people had received a first jab as of Monday night, taking the SAR's vaccination rate to 51.9 percent. But there still needs to be an improvement in vaccine take-up numbers.

In Singapore, 70 percent of its 5.7 million population were fully vaccinated by Sunday and 79 percent had received at least one shot.

That led authorities to ease social distancing measures yesterday, allowing dine-in services to resume and increasing the size of group gatherings to five people if they are fully vaccinated.

wallis.wang@singtaonewscorp.com