Coronavirus: tighten airport measures, Beijing delegation urges Hong Kong in inspection visit over border reopening
- Visiting health panel views air hub as key defence against imported infections, insider says
- But mainland experts, who also inspected quarantine hotel and local testing facility, ‘happy with what they have seen’, source reveals
Sources revealed on Monday that while the delegation urged local officials to bolster efforts to shut out imported cases, it was mostly satisfied with the city’s overall strategy to keep the virus in check and create conditions to allow the border to reopen.
“The mainland experts have made suggestions about some procedures which they think could be improved, especially those related to the airport because it is a key gateway to prevent imported cases from becoming local community infections,” a mainland official source with knowledge of the visit said. “As for the whole inspection, so far so good.”
The delegation comprises representatives of the National Health Commission, Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and health experts from Guangdong province.
The experts’ first visit was to the airport, where they spent nearly three hours, the longest stop so far of their four-day tour.
The delegation urged Hong Kong authorities to do “everything possible” to block imported cases, as such infections could “potentially destroy the mainland’s and Hong Kong’s domestic control efforts overnight”, the insider said.
