Hong Kong to Ban Flights From India, Pak & Philippines for 14 Days

The announcement was made after a second local COVID-19 case involving a mutated strain of the virus was confirmed.

HK to Temporarily ban flights from India, Pak, Philippines

(Image Courtesy: IANS)

The Hong Kong government has announced its decision to ban commercial passenger flights from India, Pakistan and the Philippines for 14 days from Tuesday, 20 April, as these countries were "extremely high-risk for COVID-19".

The announcement on Sunday came hours after city officials confirmed a second local COVID-19 case involving a mutated strain of the virus, the South China Morning Post newspaper reported.

According to the announcement, anyone who has spent more than two hours in those three countries have also been banned from entering Hong Kong.

People already in quarantine in Hong Kong from those three nations will be ordered to take an additional test on the 26th day after arriving in the city.

Health officials had earlier decided to ban Cathay Pacific's Manila flights and India's Vistara services from Mumbai, for two weeks until 2 May after a number of passengers were found to be COVID-19 positive upon their arrival in Hong Kong.

According to the South China Morning Post report, a Vistara flight from Delhi which arrived in Hong Kong on 4 April is now at the Centre of a growing coronavirus outbreak with 47 passengers on the 188-seater flight infected.

The route, however, was subsequently banned for two weeks after a number of passengers arrived with COVID-19.

On Sunday, Hong Kong registered 30 new COVID-19 cases, of which 29 of were imported.

New infections took the total case tally to 11,683, with 209 deaths.