Hong Kong to make air cargo crew do 3-day hotel quarantine

Hong Kong will mandate three-day hotel quarantines for air cargo crew, as the Asian city steps up efforts to prevent any local transmission of the contagious omicron Covid-19 variant. “We have to balance between the risk of infectious disease outbreaks and the cargo operation,” Edwin Tsui, controller of the Center for Health Protection, said at a press briefing on Tuesday in Hong Kong. He didn’t provide a start date for the new rules. He added that the three-day quarantine should “intercept” cases on arrival, noting that the government was mulling similar measures for regular air crew. The move comes as Hong Kong imposes increasingly stringent border control measures as the highly mutated and wildly transmissible omicron variant is spurring record case counts globally. The city is one of the only places to have avoided a delta outbreak, with no local virus spread occurring since early June. Earlier Tuesday, local broadcaster Cable TV reported the Hong Kong government planned to extend its vaccine mandate to schools and workplaces, citing unidentified people. That move would build on inoculation requirements that already apply to bars, clubs, bathhouses, karaoke parlors and some restaurants.<br/>