Hong Kong to ban flights from India, Pakistan and Philippines from 20 April

Hong Kong will ban flights from India, Pakistan and the Philippines for 14 days starting April 20, the government said in a statement Sunday.

A circuit breaker arrangement is triggered for each of the countries as there had been five or more arrivals with the N501Y mutant coronavirus strain within seven days, the government said. Under the mechanism the three countries will be designated as “extremely high-risk.”

This comes after Hong Kong reported the first two virus variant cases in the community over the weekend.