Hong Kong says Omicron has expanded locally despite strict rules Coronavirus pandemic News

The city is largely isolated in order to have a highly transmissible variant of coronavirus.

Hong Kong officials say Omikron variant coronaviruses have spread within the community, despite being one of the most stringent containment measures in the world, as the city has reported its first cases outside of its forty strict systems.

Health Secretary Sophia Chan told reporters on Friday that one of the four members of the plane who tested positive after returning to Hong Kong had broken the rules of the house by going to a restaurant where the virus was transmitted to her father and a customer sitting at another table.

“Omicron is angry all over the world … and now it has found its way into the community,” Chan said.

Health chief Chuang Shuk-kwan told reporters that another airline employee, who gave a positive but previously believed home stay, had visited a bar in a crowded nightclub shortly after the last return flight.

The global financial center has been without a coronavirus for a long time since the pandemic began. The last case of COVID-19, which was followed outside the quarantine facilities and hotels, was found in October. Previous infections with the Omicron variant were found in the quarantine of people returning to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has largely isolated itself from the world with the intention of opening up its border to mainland China for a limited number of business travelers. In the wider region, mainland China and New Zealand have also doubled their existing strict border controls, and Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, among others, have imposed strict travel restrictions in response to the highly infectious Omicron variant. .

in a Interview with Al JazeeraPhilip Goh, regional head of the International Air Transport Association, said the tightening of the last Asian borders was just a “temporary speed” on the road to recovery and said the region would reopen to travel as it learned more about Omicron, more transmissible than the Delta variant. which is believed to have been associated with milder diseases.

In Hong Kong, authorities this week tightened quarantine rules for aircraft crews, extending the isolation period to one week in a hotel room from three days.

The flight crews were allowed to quarantine at home, unlike most who return to the city, who have to be quarantined in hotels for 21 days at their own expense.

The pilots expressed concerns about their mental health amid long periods of isolation, even before the measures were tightened.

Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways said on Thursday that the new measures had forced a significant number of passengers and cargo flights to be canceled due to staff shortages.

The airline said on Thursday it would suspend long-haul flights to Europe, across the Pacific and to Riyadh and Dubai until January 6.

Less than 70 percent of its population has taken two shots of Chinese Sinovac or German BioNTech vaccines. Only about 5 percent of people received a third booster shot.