Hong Kong bans flights from Pakistan, seven other countries

Hong Kong authorities Wednesday announced a two-week ban on flights from Pakistan and seven other countries including India, India, Pakistan, Philippines, UK and America. 

Hong Kong has tightened restrictions as authorities feared a fifth wave of COVID-19 infections. 

The newly imposed restrictions are the latest economic blow to an international business hub pursuing a zero-COVID strategy that has kept cases low but left residents cut off from the rest of the world. 

Incoming flights from Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Britain and the United States, including interchanges, would be banned, starting January 8.

The restrictions are set to remain effective till January 21.  

Today, Hong Kong recorded 38 new COVID-19 cases but only one was a local community transmission, while the rest were people who had returned to the city from abroad and tested positive during quarantine. 

Following this authorities scrambled to track down and test hundreds of people who had been in contact with a handful of Omicron patients. 

On January 4, the city reported a total of 12,690 from which 114 were of omicron variant, including 213 deaths.