The Government announced today that it will extend to March 4 the suspension of passenger flights from eight countries, while the same restriction will apply to aircraft from Nepal from tomorrow.

Having implemented the place-specific flight suspension mechanism from January 8, passenger flights from Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, the UK and the US are not allowed to land in Hong Kong. This restriction was to be maintained until February 18.

However, as the local epidemic situation remains severe and many Hong Kong residents have been returning from these eight places, the Government decided to extend the suspension for two weeks from February 19 to March 4.

It made the move to prevent imported COVID-19 cases from placing additional pressure on the city’s healthcare system at this crucial juncture of curbing the local epidemic situation.

To stop people from the eight countries from travelling to Hong Kong via transit, those who have stayed there for more than two hours within 14 days will be restricted from boarding inbound passenger flights, the Government added.

At the same time, due to a number of imported COVID-19 cases from Nepal, a flight ban will be enforced on passenger aircraft from the country from tomorrow until March 4, prohibiting people who have stayed in Nepal for more than two hours within 14 days from boarding passenger flights for Hong Kong.

“We understand that the place-specific flight suspension mechanism is an extremely stringent emergency measure, and will inevitably affect the return journeys of Hong Kong residents from these nine places. However, we must maintain the relevant measure so as to quickly quell the epidemic situation, in order to prevent imported cases from posing additional pressure on the medical system,” the Government noted.