Hong Kong has suspended flights from the Philippines, India and Pakistan for 14 days.
This as officials of the Chinese special administrative region confirmed that the N501Y mutant Covid-19 strain had been detected in the Asian financial hub.
“With confirmed cases involving the N501Y mutant strain detected for the first time in the community in Hong Kong, for prudence’s sake, the Government has applied the criteria of the newly implemented place-specific flight suspension mechanism retrospectively for 14 days on places where there had been imported cases confirmed by arrival tests that carried the N501Y mutant strain,” a government spokesman said.
The spokesman said the three countries had a seven-day cumulative number of relevant cases that reached the criteria for place-specific flight suspension.
The Philippines, India and Pakistan were classified as areas of “extremely high risk.”
Hong Kong reported 30 new Covid-19 cases on Sunday.
Airlines affected by Hong Kong’s include carriers such as Cebu Pacific, Hong Kong Airlines, Vistara and Cathay Pacific. Arvee Christine R. Biscocho