Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Professor Sophia Chan, after attending a radio programme today (March 7):
Reporter: What advice do you have for people remain travelling in the upcoming holiday like the Easter holiday? You are advising them to postpone their holiday. Do you have any advice on until when they should restore holiday like the summer holidays? Does the Government have any plan to issue travel alert to more countries?
Secretary for Food and Health: In view of the global epidemic situation, especially in some of the countries that they have an increased number of confirmed cases very rapidly, the Government has already issued the red outbound travel alert to three countries including South Korea, Italy and Iran. The Centre for Health Protection is closely monitoring and doing risk assessment every day on the global situation and also taking into account the advice of the World Health Organization. The Department of Health has also issued health advice to people who are planning to travel and asked them to delay their travel plans. Obviously, we are continuing to monitor the situation. At this point in time, we are not able to say when. However, I would also appeal to the public that they can look into the situation of the global places and all the different countries, and avoid unnecessary travel. In terms of how to prevent and control the epidemic, social distancing is very important. Not only we are appealing to the public to delay their travel plans, we also want to advise everyone to maintain social distancing and not to go to parties and gatherings. It is because according to our data of the confirmed cases, there are many clusters that involved people gathering and then being infected. So, maintaining social distance is very important.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
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