The financial hub cannot lift a ban on flights from nine countries including the US, UK and Australia because it will add more pressure to the already overwhelmed health-care system and resources, Lam said during the press conference. Once community infections are eliminated, preferably after a compulsory testing of the city’s entire population, Hong Kong may open up a pathway for international travel, she said.
“It’s not the time to immediately lift the ban,” Lam said. Once the reopening occurs, “a lot of people will rush to come back,” she said. “Inevitably among some of those people there will be infected cases. There may even be critically ill cases arising from the returns, and that would add a lot of pressure to our public hospital system.”
Once the fifth wave is under control, preferably after mass testing contains any lingering routes of transmission, “we will certainly have plans or a pathway to open up Hong Kong again for our own people and for the international travel,” she said. Lam made the remarks in her first routine daily briefing on Hong Kong’s progress in fighting Covid. Lam said on Wednesday that she would brief reporters every day with different government officials to keep the public informed. Bloomberg
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