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| CE Lee and Secretary Lo announce the lifting of the mask mandate at a press conference |
Chief Executive John Lee
announced earlier today that mandatory masking in Hong Kong will be lifted from
tomorrow, Mar. 1. The no-mask order will be enforced whether outdoor or indoor.
Speaking ahead of the
Executive Council meeting this morning, CE Lee said the move is a signal to the
world that life in Hong Kong is now back to normal.
“After looking at all
the data, the trend and the fact that the winter surge is nearing the end, in
order to give people a very clear message that Hong Kong is resuming to
normalcy, I think this is the right time to make the decision. That is why
today I made the announcement to lift the masking requirement as soon as
possible, that is, starting from tomorrow (March 1),” said the CE.
He added that as part of
measures to protect public health, persons in charge of premises or groups
considered as high risk such as hospitals and care homes, will still be allowed
to require people entering the premises to still wear masks.
But this also means that
mask-wearing will no longer required for most other places, including public
transportation.
CE Lee assured the
public that there is no going back from lifting all pandemic restrictions, and
that there will be a total scrapping of the mask mandate for indoor and outdoor
place.
Health Secretary Lo
Chung Maw said it would be problematic to enforce a partial lifting of the mask
mandate and it would cause inconvenience to most people.
"The complete lifting of the mask mandate
means an official end to all of our social distancing measures... We look
forward to tomorrow, March 1, being a better day," Lo said.
The CE said He said
the government will keep tabs on the Covid situation to ensure that the rate of
infection remains under control.
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