Starting on March 19th, travelers arriving in Hong Kong from any foreign country will have to undergo a mandatory two-week home quarantine or medical surveillance, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced on Tuesday.

Carrie Lam Thursday said that the government would do its utmost in making compulsory quarantine arrangements on arrivals from overseas to prevent COVID-19 from spreading in the community.

Lam visited Hong Kong International Airport on Thursday afternoon, and was briefed on the workflow of implementing mandatory quarantine for people arriving in Hong Kong, including body temperature checks, issuing quarantine order, handing out guidelines, and helping arrivals wear positioning wristbands.

Under the compulsory quarantine arrangements, some arrivals would be provided with saliva collection cups to collect specimens for virus testing.

In light of the number of confirmed cases in recent days, the threat of transmission of the virus into Hong Kong from overseas was huge, Lam said, appealing to all the people under quarantine to abide strictly with the requirements of the quarantine order by not going out for 14 days upon arrival.

Hong Kong extends free testing service for COVID-19 to inbound travellers

Hong Kong has extended free testing service for COVID-19 to cover part of inbound travellers in order to minimize the risk of community transmission, the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government announced Thursday.

The free testing service for COVID-19 has been extended from Thursday to cover inbound travellers at Hong Kong International Airport who are aged 65 or above and those residing with seniors aged 65 or above, said the CHP in a press release, adding elderly people infected with COVID-19 usually present with a more serious clinical condition or are more prone to complications, and are thus subject to higher potential risk.

Health personnel will provide a specimen container to those inbound travellers at the airport, who are required to collect their deep throat saliva sample in the morning on the specified collection date by themselves at home and to have their family members or friends deliver it to any of the 13 designated chest clinics or dermatological clinics.

If a sample tests positive, the centre will notify the person concerned and arrange for admission to a public hospital for treatment as early as possible, said the press release.

The HKSAR government on Wednesday announced that compulsory quarantine will be imposed on all persons arriving from all places outside China starting from March 19 and lasting for three months.

Hong Kong has seen a remarkably increasing number of imported COVID-19 cases recently, and the focus of the HKSAR government's epidemic prevention and control work has shifted to preventing the virus from being imported from overseas and stopping imported cases from spreading in the community, HKSAR government's secretary for food and health Sophia Chan said Wednesday.