By The SUN
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| CX flights from Sydney and Vancouver are both grounded for a week from today |
Three passenger flights from Australia, Thailand and Canada have
been banned for a week each, on the eve of relaxation of Hong Kong’s flight suspension
rules.
The move came as 363 new Covid-19 cases were reported
Saturday, of which 25 were imported.
Suspended from May 1 to 7 are flights CX162 from Sydney, TR600
from Bangkok and CX865 from Vancouver, each of which carried three passengers
who tested positive on arrival in Hong Kong.
The first two arrived on Friday, and the third, on Saturday.
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From today, the flight suspension mechanism will only kick in
if five passengers who flew in together test positive on arrival. The period of
suspension will also be cut to five days instead of seven.
Also starting today, fully vaccinated non-residents will also
be allowed to enter Hong Kong, subject to the same seven-day hotel quarantine
for all inbound travelers and a negative result for a PCR test taken within 48
hours of boarding their flights.
According to Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health
Protection, the newly recorded imported cases included 14 passengers who
arrived in Hong Kong on Friday.
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Apart from the six who took TR600 and CX798, there was one Covid
carrier each on flight PR300 from Manila and CX798 from Jakarta, two on SQ894
from Singapore, two on EK384 from Dubai via Bangkok, and two on KL819 from
Amsterdam.
Dr Chuang also said that among the imported cases recorded in
Hong Kong recently, 10 were found to carry the new Omicron sub-variants BA.2.12
and BA.2.12.1.
The cases, which involved three males and seven females aged
5 to 66, arrived in Hong Kong from Australia, the United States, Germany, India
and Singapore between April 6 and 26.
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Seven of the patients tested positive on arrival while the
remaining three tested positive during the compulsory seven-day hotel
quarantine.
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| Chuang and Lau give the daily press briefing on Covid-19 |
Chuang said the strains are sub-lineages of the BA.2 Omicron variant, and that some studies have shown they are more transmissible.
No similar cases have been found in the community but CHP
will continue to monitor the situation.
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The CHP expert said they hope the cases would continue to
ease but there is a possibility that they would rebound as the social
distancing measures are further relaxed.
"The Omicron variant is infectious. There could be
millions of people who haven't been infected and people could be infected even
after vaccination,” she warned.
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“We're also facing pressure in terms of imported cases as the
global pandemic continues.”
