161 under mandatory quarantine

February 8, 2020

Chief Executive Carrie Lam: At the moment, Hong Kong has only three control points still in operation. They are the Hong Kong International Airport, Shenzhen Bay, as well as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. The Hong Kong International Airport, as you know, serves mostly international passengers. Actually today’s arrivals, over 90% are arrivals at the airport. This figure of 8,953 is total arrivals as at 4pm today. And arrivals at the airport very often, will not be caught by the new regulation because they are not passengers arriving from the Mainland. But if those arrivals from international flights are passengers who have been in the Mainland for the past 14 days, they will still be caught by the new regulation. Now coming back to the two land-based boundary control points. So logically one would think that since they’re land based, so they’re connected to the Mainland. The total arrivals are 807. The breakdown is like this: 125 from the Shenzhen Bay control point, 682 from the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. A further breakdown will show you that of the arrivals through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, many of them were Macau residents or Hong Kong people returning from Macau. And again, they are not caught by the regulation, because they are arrivals from Macau. So as a result of all these things, those who are subject to the mandatory quarantine order, as at today 4pm, are 161 arrivals.

(To watch the video with sign language interpretation, click here.)

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said today that 161 arrivals from the Mainland have been placed under mandatory quarantine since the new regulation came into effect at midnight.

During a press briefing, Mrs Lam said as at 4pm today, out of those 161 arrivals comprising 143 Hong Kong residents and 18 non-Hong Kong residents, 148 are under home quarantine, 11 are in hotels and the remainder are in two separate quarantine centres.

Hong Kong now has only three control points still in operation: Hong Kong International Airport, Shenzhen Bay and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge.

Mrs Lam revealed as at 4pm today, 8,953 people arrived in Hong Kong via those three control points, with more than 90% coming from the airport, but not all of them fell under the mandatory quarantine regulation.

“Arrivals at the airport very often, will not be caught by the new regulation because they are not passengers arriving from the Mainland. But if those arrivals from international flights are passengers who have been in the Mainland for the past 14 days, they will still be caught by the new regulation.”

She added that not all passengers flying in from the Mainland were staying in Hong Kong and may be in transit at the airport.

As for the two land-based boundary control points at the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and Shenzhen Bay, as at 4pm today, there were 807 arrivals. Of these, 682 arrived via the bridge and 125 from the bay.

“A further breakdown will show you that of the arrivals through the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, many of them were Macau residents or Hong Kong people returning from Macau. And again, they are not caught by the regulation, because they are arrivals from Macau.”