Beijing miss for Carrie Lam and NPC team chief

The leader of the Hong Kong delegation to the National People's Congress, Ma Fung-kwok, cannot attend the upcoming Beijing meeting as he had been in contact with a Legislative Council employee who tested preliminarily positive.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor will not be attending the opening ceremony of the so-called Two Sessions meetings, for she will be staying here to handle the worsening outbreak, sources said.

She attended the ceremony last year amid the fourth wave in March, but the daily caseload then was below 200 per day while the present fifth wave has seen cases exceed 10,000 in the past two days.

Ma said yesterday the contact occurred on Tuesday and he needed to extend his quarantine.

Dozens of NPC and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference members headed to Shenzhen on Thursday for a week of isolation and daily virus tests before flying to Beijing for the so-called Two-Sessions meetings.

That makes 13 who can't join the meetings after CPPCC delegate Irons Sze Wing-wai tested positive Friday, and was transferred to Shenzhen No 3 People's Hospital.

Among close contacts of Sze are NPC deputy Nicholas Chan Hiu-fung and NPC member and lawmaker Lai Tung-kwok as they shared the same bus to Shenzhen.

This year's meetings will see the most absentees from Hong Kong as many NPC and CPPCC members have already indicated weeks ago they would not attend.

Of the 36 NPC deputies, around 20 departed Thursday.

Among the absentees, sources said, is NPC deputy Witman Hung Wai-man, whose 53rd birthday party in January caused an uproar in Hong Kong and Casper Tsui Ying-wai to resign as home affairs chief.

The news came as accountancy -sector lawmaker Edmund Wong Chun-sek is set to leave quarantine.

Wong said on Facebook he tested negative in a rapid test on his 14th day in quarantine.

Wong was the first lawmaker to test positive, while two others, Alice Mak Mei-kuen of the Federation of Trade Unions and pro-establishment independent Yang Wing-kit, were also infected afterwards.

The mainland saw 127 new imported infections Saturday, including over 100 from Hong Kong that were reported in Guangdong, Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Jiangsu and Shanghai.