Starting from Thursday, people who have visited the United Kingdom, United States, Ireland and Egypt in the past 14 days will be subject to home quarantine upon their arrival in Hong Kong, the government announced on Sunday.
Home quarantine is a necessary arrangement because of the limited capacity of the quarantine centers which are reserved for close contacts of confirmed patients, a government spokesman said in a statement.
Previously, the government has adopted quarantine measures of some other countries in Asia and Europe hard hit by the epidemic. They include South Korea, Japan, Iran and 26 countries in Schengen area.
The government has also issued red outbound travel alerts to the UK, US and Ireland. The alert has already been issued to Egypt for security reasons since 2014.
By Saturday, US and UK has recorded 1,678 and 802 cases of coronavirus infection, respectively. The number of confirmed cases in Egypt and Ireland is 93 and 90.
From March 2 to 15, more than half of the 46 confirmed cases in Hong Kong were imported. Seven patients had traveled outside Hong Kong during part of the incubation period. So far Hong Kong has recorded 148 cases of coronavirus infection.
The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak as a global pandemic on March 11. By Saturday, a total of 134 overseas countries and regions outside China have reported more than 60,000 new cases, according to the organization.
