Passenger Terminal Today - Elizabeth Baker
The Hong Kong government has ended its route-specific flight suspension until further notice, deciding that more nucleic acid testing for inbound passengers will be more effective in halting the importation of Covid-19 cases.
According to the government, the daily number of imported cases accounted for less than 10% of Hong Kong’s overall number of cases. Over half of the imported cases were detected by nucleic acid tests under the ‘test-and-hold’ arrangement at the airport. Supplemented by subsequent tests during the quarantine period, including nucleic acid tests conducted on the fifth day in designated quarantine hotels (DQHs), the vast majority of imported cases were able to be detected, thus putting the risk of having community outbreaks induced by imported cases at a low level. Therefore, the government will increase the testing frequency for inbound persons.
