The Government announced today that the quarantine requirements for people arriving from 16 overseas places will be tightened from midnight on August 20 in view of the latest developments of the COVID-19 epidemic situation.

The Government said the global COVID-19 epidemic situation is under serious threat from the Delta variant, with acute surges in the number of confirmed cases within a short period of time in many countries.

Despite large-scale vaccination programmes, many places are also experiencing resurgence of the virus, which poses enormous challenges to local anti-epidemic efforts.

After considering a basket of factors, the Government has decided to upgrade the risk grouping of 16 overseas places to impose more stringent boarding, quarantine and testing requirements on relevant inbound travellers to uphold the local barrier against the importation of COVID-19.

Bangladesh, Cambodia, France, Greece, Iran, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the US will be upgraded from medium-risk places to high-risk places.

Australia will be upgraded from low-risk place to medium-risk place.

Click here for details on the arrangements.