Hong Kong to ban dining in restaurants from 6pm to stem spread of COVID-19

Hong Kong will be returning to a series of social distancing measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 cases.    

Dining in at restaurants will be cut off at 6pm local time, while gyms and beauty salons in the city will also be shut. This comes after a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections in Hong Kong, where case numbers exceeded 100 per day last week. 

“We have no choice,” Hong Kong’s chief executive Carrie Lam said on Tuesday, Dec 8. 

While she did not say when these restrictions would take effect, Lam added: “We all need to be mentally prepared about more measures to be rolled out.” 

Apart from school closure until after the Christmas break, companies have also been urged to allow work-from-arrangements for their employees to reduce the number of people on the streets.  

This has delayed a Singapore-Hong Kong air travel bubble which was slated to start on Nov 22, with two flights per day into each city. 

The launch was first postponed by two weeks, before it was further pushed back to 2021 earlier this month.