Omicron in Hong Kong: Major new restrictions on society and global travel

Today (Jan. 5) Hong Kong announced major restrictions on daily life across society as well as barring flights from specific countries due to early evidence of Omicron transmission. The Hong Kong Department of Health’s Centre for Health Protection posted detailed epidemiologic information on suspected and confirmed cases. This official document also lists specific plane flights from the USA (New York City), Canada (Toronto) and Germany (Frankfurt) having multiple people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 upon landing in Hong Kong. As a result, flights from these three cities have been prohibited from Jan. 5-18, and the public was advised “to avoid all non-essential travel outside Hong Kong.”

Further detailed restrictions regarding travel into Hong Kong were reported in the South China Morning Post on Jan. 5. These included:

 “Arrivals from eight countries (Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, UK and US), including via transit, banned from returning to the city for two weeks starting Saturday.”

In addition, the same article reported:

“Dine-in services banned from 6pm to 4.59am the next day; diners per table capped at two in Type B premises, four in Type C and six for Type D.”

“Fifteen types of specified premises to shut. They are bars and pubs, nightclubs, fitness centres, theme parks, museums, party rooms, beauty parlours, swimming pools, bathhouses, game centres, karaoke rooms, sports premises, Chinese-style gambling establishments for mahjong and tin kau (dominoes), event and performance venues, and cinemas.”

Omicron in Hong Kong will also be of serious concern to mainland China, especially as mass travel leading up to the Feb. 1 Lunar Chinese New Year of the Tiger gets started. In addition, the Winter Olympics start Feb. 3 in China.         

The world should care a great deal if Omicron, or any other variant, manages to overcome China’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy and infect hundreds of millions of people who have no natural immunity from past infections and little neutralizing antibody against Omicron after two doses of their inactivated vaccines. This plausible scenario could be terrible for China and also should be anticipated to give rise to new and perhaps worse variants of concern after Omicron (e.g., Pi, Rho, Sigma or Omega) that become global.