Hong Kong eases restrictions, scraps isolation rules for new COVID-19 cases

Hong Kong will lift mandatory quarantine rules for people with COVID-19 from Jan. 30 as part of a strategy to get the southern Chinese city back to normal, city leaders said Thursday.

For most of the past three years of pandemics, Hong Kong has followed China’s No COVID” strategy, requiring anyone who tests positive to undergo quarantine. Many residents have even had to be taken to hospitals or government quarantine facilities if their symptoms are mild.

Chief Executive John Lee told lawmakers he made the decision-based in part on the city’s high vaccination and infection rates, saying the community faces a powerful “immune barrier.

Since most of those infected have experienced only mild symptoms, the government will go from a clear and mandatory approach to allowing residents to make their own decisions and take responsibility for themselves when managing the pandemic. We have to move to an approach,” he said.