COVID-19 situation followed closely

March 12, 2020

Under Secretary for Food & Health Dr Chui Tak-yi:

About the announcement by the Director-General of the WHO (World Health Organization) about COVID-19 being characterised as a pandemic, he also stated that describing the situation as a pandemic doesn’t change WHO’s assessment of the threat posed and also it doesn’t change what countries should do. 

So in fact, we have been observing the trend of the infection in Mainland China, in Hong Kong and also in different parts of the world throughout this period. And that’s why we have executed new measures, for example, the Outbound Travel Alert and also the quarantine measures for people travelling to Hong Kong, either Hong Kong people travelling back to Hong Kong or foreigners travelling to Hong Kong. 

So indeed, we will continue to examine the situation in different parts of the (world) with several parameters, like the number of new cases, the trend of increase - whether it is an explosive kind of increase or a gradual increase, the countries’ or cities’ systems in surveillance, their existing medical health services and also the frequency of travel of Hong Kong people to those areas. 

And of course, we will keep looking at the trend. And we also will look at, apart from the number of cases reported by different countries, we’ll also look at other traces of evidence, for example, the two big groups of travellers which came back from Egypt and also from India. They’ve also given us some clues of the infection status in different parts of the world. So we will not rule out any enhancement or stepping up of measures in the time to come and we’ll continue to evaluate and announce them in due course.

(To watch the full press briefing with sign language interpretation, click here.)

Hong Kong will continue monitoring the COVID-19 situation in different parts of the world, Under Secretary for Food & Health Dr Chui Tak-yi said today.

Dr Chui made the statement at a press briefing this afternoon in response to a question about the World Health Organization's declaration of the coronavirus' spread as a pandemic.

He noted the WHO Director-General also stated that describing the situation as a pandemic does not change the WHO's assessment of the threat posed and also does not change what countries should do.

"We have been observing the trend of the infection in Mainland China, in Hong Kong and also in different parts of the world throughout this period.

"That’s why we have executed new measures, for example, the Outbound Travel Alert and also the quarantine measures for people travelling to Hong Kong, either Hong Kong people travelling back to Hong Kong or foreigners travelling to Hong Kong.

"We will continue to examine the situation in different parts of the (world) with several parameters, like the number of new cases, the trend of increase - whether it is an explosive kind of increase or a gradual increase, the countries’ or cities’ systems in surveillance, their existing medical health services and also the frequency of travel of Hong Kong people to those areas."

Apart from cases reported by different countries, Dr Chui pointed out the Government is also examining other evidence, such as travellers who returned to the city from Egypt and India, to learn more about the infection status in different parts of the world.

"We will not rule out any enhancement or stepping up of measures in the time to come and we’ll continue to evaluate and announce them in due course," he added.