Coronavirus: Hong Kong extends stricter social-distancing measures, flight bans on 8 countries through Lunar New Year, will provide HK$3.57 billion in subsidies to hard-hit businesses | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3163344/hong-kong-social-distancing-ban-evening-dine
Coronavirus: Hong Kong extends stricter social-distancing measures, flight bans on 8 countries through Lunar New Year, will provide HK$3.57 billion in subsidies to hard-hit businesses.Hong Kong’s ban on evening dine-in services will be extended for two more weeks, through the Lunar New Year holiday, while industries hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic will be offered HK$3.57 billion in subsidies.Confirming an earlier Post report, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor also announced on Friday a flight ban currently imposed on Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Britain and the United States would also be extended until February 4. The ban was first introduced on January 8.
With the measures in place, Lam was still hopeful the long-awaited reopening of the border with mainland China was on the cards after the outbreak of the highly transmissive Omicron variant had stalled the plan.
“The latest assessment is Covid-19 is not yet under control, there’s still a risk of a large-scale outbreak,” Lam told a press briefing on Friday evening. “If there is no major outbreak on February 4, we will restore business operations but they will be subject to vaccination requirements.”She said applications for the subsidies would open as soon as next week with the fifth round of pandemic relief focusing on two main groups.The first is businesses directly affected by the latest curbs such as restaurants, which cannot offer night-time dine-in services, and the beauty industry as well as hard-hit individuals such as gym instructors and freelance artists.
The second group is industries that have remained “frozen” during the pandemic, such as the tourism sector and cross-border transport industry.
Lam said that as the curbs would be in place for four weeks compared with up to 158 days for some industries during the fourth wave, the subsidy amount for businesses this time would be half of that during the previous round of relief. And for individuals, it would be two-thirds of that amount.
The latest offerings add to the government’s subsidies of HK$162.3 billion via an anti-epidemic fund directly benefiting more than 20 industries in 2020 and 2021.The extension will put a damper on Hongkongers’ traditional festive dinners out, requiring them to instead celebrate at home until at least the fourth day of Lunar New Year – one day after the public holiday ends. Large-scale events, such as the Lunar New Year Fair, will also be affected. Stricter social-distancing measures, initially meant to last two weeks, were reimposed on January 5 in the wake of the emergence of an ongoing fifth wave of coronavirus infections.
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