Hong Kong Bans Flights from UK; Lists Country as Extremely High-Risk

All passenger flights from the United Kingdom will be prohibited from landing in Hong Kong from 1 July, the government has announced.

As Hong Kong has listed the UK as an "extremely high-risk Group A1 specified place", travellers who have been in the UK for more than 2 hours in the past 21 days will be prohibited from entering the city.

The UK was previously listed as a Group A2 specified place.

The government of Hong Kong said in a statement earlier this week that the decision has been taken, "in view of the recent rebound of the UK’s epidemic situation and the widespread Delta variant virus strain there, coupled with the detection of imported cases with the L452R mutant strain from people arriving from the UK in Hong Kong."

Before this latest change in status, travellers from the UK were required to quarantine for 21 days upon arrival in Hong Kong.

The UK reported 26,068 new COVID19 cases on Wednesday, the highest number of new cases since 29 January 2021, and an increase of 5,589 on Tuesday's total of 20,479.

Since the global COVID19 pandemic began, the UK has recorded over 4,791,628 cases and 128,390 deaths (as of 06:21 BST on 30 June 2021).

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