Meeting has been touted as an important step in restoring quarantine-free travel for residents crossing the border.
Local and mainland Chinese officials will meet in Shenzhen on Sunday to discuss pandemic-control measures in what Hong Kong’s leader has previously billed as a step towards restoring full quarantine-free travel for residents crossing the border.
Led by Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu, the local delegation arrived in Shenzhen on Saturday to prepare for the meeting.
The delegation includes Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siu-chee, Secretary for Innovation and Technology Alfred Sit Wing-hang, pandemic adviser David Hui Shu-cheong, and representatives of the Department of Health and the government’s information technology office.
The sit-down with mainland officials was first suggested by Lam earlier this month in hopes of speeding up the broader reopening of Hong Kong’s border with the mainland.
Hong Kong’s recently launched “Come2HK” scheme has seen an average of 400 non-residents a day come to the city from the mainland and Macau without having to undergo quarantine, but Beijing has resisted extending such an arrangement to travellers heading in the other direction.
On Saturday afternoon, however, officials announced that the scheme, along with a similar one exclusively for residents known as “Return2HK”, would be suspended for arrivals from Macau starting at 10pm following the detection of two cases there involving the Delta variant.
Macau officials have ordering all of the city’s 680,000 residents to be tested for the coronavirus after two security guards working at a quarantine hotel there were confirmed to be carrying the more infectious strain. The government said it aimed to complete the testing within 72 hours, starting from 3pm on Saturday.
Those coming to Hong Kong from Macau will now need to undergo one week of home quarantine if fully vaccinated, and two weeks if not. A Hong Kong government spokesman said those who had already made bookings for the two quarantine-free schemes would be notified individually.
People line up for Covid-19 tests in Macau on Saturday.
Meanwhile, local health authorities urged Hongkongers to avoid non-essential overseas travel on Saturday after the city confirmed nine new imported Covid-19 cases.
The nine new cases – which included a nine-month-old baby – were the most confirmed in a single day since August 27, when 17 imported infections were recorded. Saturday’s infections involved arrivals from Britain, Indonesia, Singapore, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Pakistan and Serbia, eight of whom were fully vaccinated. Six were asymptomatic.
While Covid-19 vaccines do not offer ironclad protection against infection, they do vastly reduce the severity of the illness and the likelihood of death, experts say.
The new infections brought the city’s official tally to 12,185 cases, with 213 related deaths.
The rising number of imported cases prompted a spokesman for the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) on Saturday to call on “members of the public to avoid all non-essential travel outside Hong Kong, in particular to specified places with high risk”.
“If travel is unavoidable, the CHP highly recommends the public to be fully vaccinated with Covid-19 vaccines before their departure,” he added.
Health authorities are also investigating a case detected overseas involving a 14-year-old girl who lives in Repulse Bay. The girl had tested negative for the coronavirus on September 5 in Hong Kong, and travelled to Britain three days later. However, a sample collected there on September 10 tested positive. The girl, who was fully vaccinated, remains asymptomatic.
The building in Repulse Bay where she lives was issued a compulsory testing notice on Friday.
Separately, Hong Kong officials have urged relatives of elderly residents who have yet to get vaccinated to encourage them to do so before another wave of infections hits the city.
With a death rate as high as 25 per cent for Covid-19 patients aged 80 and above, and with only 14 per cent of that age group inoculated citywide, health experts renewed their calls for older people to get jabbed.
Dr Philip Li Kam-tao, president of the Hong Kong College of Physicians, said the inoculation rate among the elderly, especially those aged 70 and above was unsatisfactory, and that of those aged 80 and above was something officials were “really worried” about.
“The number of them needing a ventilator and being treated in the intensive care unit will be high,” he warned. “If the elderly get infected in residential care homes, the pandemic will spread very quickly.”
So far 4.45 million people, or 66.1 per cent of the eligible population in Hong Kong, have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. But the take-up rate among residents aged 60 and above is still relatively low, with 58.7 per cent having received at least one jab, while for those in their 70s the figure is 39.6 per cent.
Senior citizens queue for Sinovac jabs at the Shek Lei Community Hall earlier this month.
According to medical experts, elderly residents should get a Covid-19 jab as soon as possible, as long as they do not suffer from any acute illnesses.
Li cited Brazil as an example, saying the take-up rate among those aged 80 and above there was 95 per cent, and figures showed the mortality rate among the infected had dropped to 13 per cent from 25 per cent.
However, he said while some elderly people were willing to get jabbed, their family members had stopped them from doing so.
“I call on their families to encourage their elders to get jabbed as soon as possible,” he said.
Dr Jason Ng Chiu-ming, president of Diabetes Hongkong, agreed, saying diabetic patients should also get jabbed as they had a weaker immune system.
“A study by Chinese University showed that for diabetic patients, if infected with Covid-19, the chances of them suffering from serious complications would be three times higher than those for normal patients,” he said.
For every 10 people who died of Covid-19 infections, four had suffered from diabetes, he said.
However, Ng said those patients who suffered from very low or high glucose levels, a stroke or myocardial infarction, should have waited until their conditions became stable before they could get vaccinated.
Five district offices have organised vaccination events for the elderly so far.
Vaccination stations at Queen Elizabeth, Tuen Mun and Queen Mary hospitals will also be opened next Wednesday, allowing patients visiting the hospital for follow-up appointments, and visitors, to receive the BioNTech vaccine without needing a booking.