New hope for HK-Macau travel bubble 

Tai Wa Hou, coordinator of the Health Bureau’s Covid-19 vaccination operation yesterday hinted that the Hong Kong-Macau travel bubble may resume, even without the need for Hong Kong to register no local cases for 28 consecutive days.
The prerequisite for the re-opening of the travel bubble is the existence of scientific evidence to prove Hong Kong’s recent confirmed cases are imported and there is no contagion risk in the community.
On June 23, Hong Kong recorded a confirmed Covid-19 case which brought the city’s 16-day record of zero local cases to an abrupt end.
This patient, who had the Delta variant, is a 27-year-old man who is a staff member at the Hong Kong airport. It was determined that he had been present around the airport’s sample collection center when two arrivals with an identical viral footprint were recorded earlier in June.
On June 27, a second local Delta variant case — a 24-year-old woman who is a colleague of the first Delta patient — was detected in Hong Kong.
Currently, authorities of the two cities are engaging in discussions on how to assess the “28 days” requirement which could reinstate the intercity quarantine-free travel flow for vaccinated persons, Tai confirmed.
If these two cases are confirmed to pose no contagion risk to Hong Kong’s public, the authorities will announce more details at an opportune time. HT