The Government today announced that it invoked the place-specific flight suspension mechanism for India, Pakistan and the Philippines.

From midnight on April 20, all passenger flights from such places will be prohibited from landing in Hong Kong for 14 days.

These places will also be specified as extremely high-risk places to restrict people who have stayed there from boarding for Hong Kong. The suspension will be effective for 14 days.

The Government explained that as confirmed cases involving the N501Y mutant strain were detected for the first time in the community in Hong Kong, for prudence sake, it applied the criteria of the newly implemented place-specific flight suspension mechanism retrospectively for 14 days on places where there had been imported cases confirmed by arrival tests that carried the N501Y mutant strain.

India, Pakistan and the Philippines all had seven-day cumulative number of relevant cases that reached the criteria in the past 14 days, it noted.

Additionally, the Government will issue a compulsory testing notice for people who returned to Hong Kong from extremely high-risk places, ie Group A specified places, to enhance the testing of those returning to Hong Kong from overseas places.

After completing the compulsory quarantine for 21 days as well as testing on the 12th and 19th day during quarantine, these people will also need to self-monitor further for another seven days and be subject to COVID-19 nucleic acid testing on the 26th day of their return to the city.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health announced it invoked a flight-specific suspension mechanism to prohibit the landing of flights operated by two airlines.

The Prevention & Control of Disease (Regulation of Cross-boundary Conveyances & Travellers) Regulation was invoked to prohibit the landing of Cathay Pacific passenger flights from Manila, the Philippines, in Hong Kong, and the landing of passenger flights of TATA SIA Airlines (Vistara) from Mumbai, India, in Hong Kong from April 19 to May 2.

Two passenger flights (CX906), operated by Cathay Pacific arriving from Manila to Hong Kong on April 14 and 17, had each carried two passengers confirmed to have COVID-19 by arrival test.

Meanwhile, a passenger flight (UK6397), operated by Vistara arriving from Mumbai to Hong Kong today, had three passengers confirmed to have the virus by arrival test.

The department thus invoked the regulation to prohibit the landing of the concerned passenger flights according to the established mechanism.