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The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government will send a second batch of chartered flights to Hubei province as early as next Tuesday to bring back Hong Kong residents there, an official of the HKSAR government announced on Monday.
After four chartered flights commissioned by the HKSAR government brought home 469 Hong Kong residents from Hubei in early March, there are still more than 3,400 Hong Kong residents staying in 37 different cities in the virus-hit province, the HKSAR government's Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Patrick Nip said at a media briefing on Monday morning.
Since the conclusion of the first operation, the HKSAR government has been in discussion with the Hubei provincial government on the next operation, with an aim to bring Hong Kong residents back in batches and in an orderly manner as soon as possible according to the principle of priority, Nip said, adding that the second batch of chartered flights will be sent to Wuhan Tianhe Airport as early as next Tuesday.
To avoid the risk of cross infection during the long travel, the second operation will mainly focus on three cities that are within two to three hours' drive from Wuhan and are having relatively more Hong Kong residents stranded there. It will also try to deal with the about 70 additional help-seeking cases in Wuhan.
All the Hong Kong residents brought back by the chartered flights will be sent into quarantine centers upon their arrival in Hong Kong to undergo a 14-day quarantine.
The HKSAR government's Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, the Immigration Department and the Department of Health as well as Hong Kong's Hospital Authority will send staff to Wuhan for the operation.
The team will count the number of help-seeking cases, assess the operation details and the capacity of quarantine centers, and then determine the number of Hong Kong residents to be brought back and the number of chartered flights that are needed, Nip added.
