Coronavirus: scrap travel bubble plans with Singapore, Hong Kong lawmakers say
- Legislators point to city state’s suggestion Covid-19 will never disappear entirely and Singapore will have to ‘live’ with it as reason to ditch scheme
- Hong Kong must not allow cases to seep in through air travel as infections could jeopardise plans to reopen border with mainland China, Michael Tien argues
The high-profile calls by pro-establishment legislators in a Legislative Council meeting on Friday to ditch the quarantine-free travel arrangement, which had already suffered two delays due to the pandemic situation in both places, came as Hong Kong’s health minister confirmed BioNTech jabs would continue to be available to residents after September even as community vaccination centres closed their doors.
In a related development, a record 70,000 people in Hong Kong received a Covid-19 jab in the 24 hours to 8pm on Friday and about 33,300 new bookings were made online.
About 4.28 million doses have been administered in total, with 33.9 per cent of the city’s 7.5 million population having received a first shot and 23.1 per cent their second.
Friday also brought a single new virus case in Hong Kong, involving an arrival from the Netherlands, taking the official tally to 11,949, with 212 related deaths.
Health authorities also banned Asiana Airlines from flying passenger flights from Seoul to Hong Kong for two weeks from Saturday to July 23, after a passenger was found to be infected upon arrival and another traveller to have breached infection-control regulations.
