All waiting to know how far Lam can go on easing curbs

Jane Cheung

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, under pressure to ease international flight bans, will announce criteria for quarantine arrangements for international arrivals today.

Lam yesterday said she would like to give the public an idea on what the anti-epidemic policies would look like after April 20, when the current stringent measures expire.

Certain restrictions may be relaxed in phases if officials are confident there will be no rebound in cases, she said, adding details will be announced today in a "mid-term review" of the curbs set on February 22.

At that time, Lam said city-wide testing would be conducted this month and gave students an "early summer holiday" from last week so authorities could use schools as test centers.

She also announced extending flight bans on nine countries - Australia, Canada, France, India, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States - until April 20.

On the suggestion of government adviser Yuen Kwok-yung from the University of Hong Kong that flight bans be lifted, Lam responded: "This [flight ban] is a very strict policy.

"Regardless of whether arrivals are Hong Kong residents, they can't come back to the SAR under the circuit-breaking system on regional flights.

"I have said several days ago that we must review it. I can't tell you our review reports now, but this is part of our policies to guard against imported cases.

"Resuming international flights doesn't mean we relax on restrictions against imported cases. We have other flights arriving every day, apart from these nine countries - although the number is very small, several hundreds per day."

In a hint that mandatory quarantine will remain in place even after the bans are relaxed, she added: "We will still impose restrictions on arrivals coming from regions where flight bans are lifted. As I've promised, I'll announce the details later."

Commenting on the flight bans, lawmaker and Executive Council member Jeffrey Lam Kin-fung said easing them can help Hong Kong "resume normal economic activities and keep talents as some multinational companies have moved their headquarters to places like Singapore because of the SAR's anti-epidemic measures."

Lam, meanwhile said she will also review distancing measures.

But she warned authorities are seeing a rebound of positive sewage samples and more and more people heading out.

"So we can't lower our guard. We must monitor the development of outbreaks to determine under what circumstances we can relax social distancing measures," she said.

She hoped to announce today "what the situation will be like after April 20 and how we are going to relax [measures] in phases."

jane.cheung@singtaonewscorp.com