(To watch the whole media briefing with sign language interpretation, click here.)

The Government has no plans to loosen any controls placed on people arriving from the Mainland, despite a low number of confirmed COVID-19 cases reported there.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam made the statement ahead of today’s Executive Council meeting when asked if the Government would consider relaxing some of its control measures or re-open boundary control points as a result of the Mainland’s drop in new coronavirus cases.

“Actually the great majority of these confirmed cases in the Mainland, recently, are imported cases. So logically, especially given our constraints in managing the home quarantine cases and so on, there may be some justification for relaxing some of the control requirements.

“But my reply is ‘no’. For the time being, we have no plans to loosen any of the controls being put on arrivals from the Mainland.

“One is, the situation is very fluid, it may still change. Secondly, after all of these control measures - closure of boundary control points in position of the 14-day quarantine, not only with the Mainland, but also now with Macau - we are seeing a significant drop in a number of arrivals, whether they are Hong Kong residents or non-Hong Kong residents coming in from the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge as well as the Shenzhen Bay control point. So there isn’t a huge need for relaxing the boundary control points.

“And thirdly, the regulation applicable to Mainland arrivals, which is (Hong Kong Laws Chapter) 599C, will expire. You may remember that all of these regulations are time-limited. This particular one will expire in early May.”

Mrs Lam also pointed out that the quarantine rules for Mainland arrivals are set to expire in May.

“So even if we do nothing by early May, this regulation will lose its effectiveness and then we will be able to resume some of the traffic flow without this 14-day quarantine requirement.”