Two former Cathay Pacific flight attendants jailed for 8 weeks for breaching Hong Kong’s Covid quarantine rules

Two former Cathay Pacific Airways flight attendants on Thursday were each sentenced to eight weeks in jail for breaching Covid-19 quarantine rules in Hong Kong while infected with the highly contagious Omicron variant. They were thought to be responsible last year for sparking one of the earliest clusters in the city’s fifth and most severe wave of infections. Wong Yoon-loong and Nilsson Lau Kok-wang, both 45, were initially jailed for nine weeks. But the court gave each of them a discount of a week, citing “valid mitigation” in losses in employment and associated benefits. Magistrate Edward Wong Ching-yu on Thursday said the case was serious because the pair had already been exempted from self-isolation, but had abused their rights and privileges and carried out “totally unnecessary activities” infecting nine members of the public. Eastern Court had remanded them in custody since last month, pending sentencing, noting that their offences were serious and warranted immediate imprisonment. They stood trial in August and October on a total of three counts of failing to observe the conditions specified by a health officer, after their guilty pleas were rejected by the court. Story has details.<br/>