In view of the latest situation of COVID-19, the Water Supplies Department (WSD) announced today (January 18) that the Guided Tours to Ex-Sham Shui Po Service Reservoir and the "Excursion with Water Save Dave" Visiting Pro… read more
Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session before the Executive Council meeting today (January 18):
Reporter: The first question is about Dr Gabriel Leung’s advice because he was saying, I think earlier last week, that the Government can consider rolling out, allowing night time dining again until 8pm. Is this something the authorities can or is considering? And secondly, about the arrangement you just announced that the “vaccine bubble” will be rolled out earlier. So are you concerned long queues outside the vaccination centres will emerge again, like what we saw earlier this month? And have you discussed the arrangement with the sectors involved, including, for example, the catering industry? Can they cope with this arrangement because this arrangement has been amended time and again? Thank you.
Chief Executive: Of course, Professor Gabriel Leung is one of my expert advisors, and The University of Hong Kong has been commissioned by us to do a weekly assessment on the situation; but at the moment, since we have implemented the social distancing measures including the restriction of dine-in service in restaurants until February 3, there is no plan to relax this particular measure, especially in view of – you have heard me reporting – two local clusters which are of concern: one is about the quarantine hotel, which has led to the cases of a quarantined woman in the hotel plus nine relatives or close relatives; the other is the pet shop cluster, which we are very worried about. For the time being, we have no plan to relax what we have already announced for implementation; but going forward, of course, we will adjust our measures. If we are to allow dine-in service again – whether it will be back to the pre-Omicron situation which was very relaxed or we will adopt other means, this is something that we will certainly consider.
That brings me to answering your second question. One of the arrangements that we could consider after this round of social distancing measures is to allow businesses to operate under “vaccine bubble”. In other words, staff and customers could only go into prescribed premises after they have been vaccinated. As a result of that suggestion, we are already seeing an increase – I wouldn’t describe it as a surge – but an increase in vaccination amongst the population, especially amongst the older population, which is to be welcomed. Since we have been talking about this “vaccine bubble” for some time, and meanwhile we have been enhancing the capacity of our vaccination centres, I’m not worried about the capacity constraint leading to long queues. In fact, at the moment, we are doing about 40 000 doses every day but our capacity far exceeds 40 000, but I would advise members of the public to try to book an appointment to get vaccinated and leave the so-called daily quota for the elderly who find it less easy to book online.
About adopting “vaccine bubble” for an earlier resumption of business, we would certainly listen to what the sector has to say. In fact, the idea was volunteered by the trade. When they heard that we might be imposing more social distancing measures, I heard the trade, including the restaurant trade and the beauty parlour trade, actually volunteered, “Why didn’t the Government allow us to operate on the basis of ‘vaccine bubble’? We could ask our customers to get vaccinated before offering them the service.” So in the next two weeks or so, we’ll continue to engage them and see whether we can come up with more acceptable arrangements that will give us the assurance on fighting the epidemic but, at the same time, allow the business to operate. I fully understand their grievances and their hardship. We try to help through the AEF (Anti-epidemic Fund) 5.0 and we will continue to closely monitor the situation and consider other means of support as and when necessary.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.) read more
The Home Affairs Bureau (HAB) announced today (January 18) that the Government has allocated $34.8 million under the fifth round of the Anti-epidemic Fund (AEF) to the Arts and Culture Sector Subsidy Scheme with a view to supporting… read more
The Eastern District Office together with the Eastern Police District and the Auxiliary Medical Service (AMS) conducted an enforcement operation today (January 18) at a building in North Point, which was included in a comp… read more
The Social Welfare Department (SWD) said today (January 18) that the Scheme on Relief Grants for Interest Class Instructors Hired by Organisations Subvented by the Social Welfare Department (Phase 4) will be open for application from January 20 till March 31. Application details will be uploaded to the SWD website on January 20. Completed application forms are to be submitted to the SWD through the subvented welfare service units concerned.
As one of the measures under the fifth round of the Anti-epidemic Fund, Phase 4 of the scheme aims at providing a one-off relief grant of $5,000 for each of the eligible interest class instructors engaged/planned to be engaged by subvented welfare service units of the SWD-subvented organisations for providing training in arts, dancing, handicraft work, sports and more for service users during the first quarter of 2022, where the units’ services have been suspended and the instructors’ income affected owing to the epidemic situation, so as to provide support and help lessen the impact of COVID-19 on them. For those instructors who have submitted applications to the Education Bureau for relief grants for school instructors of learning/interest classes or to the Leisure and Cultural Services Department for relief grants for registered sports coaches, further submission to the SWD is not required. read more