Coronavirus: Hong Kong leader John Lee dismisses calls to drop health code for travellers and mask-wearing rules, hints ‘0+3’ will remain
- He argues city has hosted mega events in the past week under tailor-made arrangements, and more activities could be carried out in similar manner
- Chief executive cites daily caseloads at between 4,000 and 6,000, and lessons from deadly fifth wave, saying pandemic never left
Hong Kong’s leader has dismissed calls to scrap a Covid-19 health code arrangement or ease rules on mask-wearing despite the smooth hosting of the Sevens rugby event over the weekend, hinting that the current “0+3” approach will not be aborted soon.
Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu, who earlier declared the mega sporting event to be a resounding “success”, on Tuesday doubled down on present pandemic policies, arguing they had already enabled the city to open up and allowed authorities to tailor-make relaxed arrangements for international events.
More of such global events could be held in a similar manner, he said.
But medical experts and the tourism sector argued against Lee’s cautious approach, saying the city was ready to relax all of its travel curbs.
Lee’s comments came as authorities on Tuesday recorded 4,649 new Covid-19 infections, including 399 which were imported, and four more deaths, bringing the overall tally to 1,957,542 cases and 10,479 fatalities.