Hong Kong ends mask mandate from March after nearly 3 years

HongKongers and tourists will no longer need to wear masks as soon as tomorrow as the city has finally lifted its mask mandate after almost three years. The latest announcement comes six days after the government extended the mask mandate until 8 March.

Hong Kong's leader John Lee said at a media session before ExCo on Tuesday, that the city will drop the mask mandate from 1 March, where people in the city can go mask-free in both indoors and outdoors, as well as when taking public transport. Lee said that the decision was made based on a few factors, including the stability of the local situation of Covid-19 and no outbreaks among high-risk populations such as hospitals, schools and care homes.  

Furthermore, the winding down of influenza and other respiratory viruses is also one of the reasons the government made the decision, “The data showed the local epidemic situation was under control and there was no big rebound. Hong Kong has already built a wide and comprehensive immunity barrier,” Lee said.

In high risk places such as hospitals and care homes, management teams can decide whether staff and visitors should wear masks. “We think this is the best time to make this decision. It is a clear message to show Hong Kong is resuming normalcy," Lee added.

In terms of social conversations, social monitoring firm Meltwater saw a total of 2,440 mentions regarding the incident from 22 to 28 February, with 77.1% neutral sentiments, 17.6% negative and 5.2% positive sentiments.

Don't miss: Hong Kong extends mask mandate again to 8 March

Meanwhile, media intelligence firm CARMA said social sentiments of Hong Kong extending the lifting of mask mandate is still negative at 19.2% (vs 6.2% positive), with many feeling that this move is due to the city opening up to tourists, rather than for the benefit of its citizens.

The latest lift of mask mandate comes after neighbouring city such as Macau's announcement that the city would drop its mask mandate except for public transportation and hospitals. Furthermore, In mainland China, residents are not required to wear masks outdoors.

Recently, Hong Kong has been going all out to lure back tourists and businesses to the city as its finance chief Paul Chan unveiled the "Happy Hong Kong" campaign on 2023 budget, including launching a "Gourmet Marketplace", under which large‑scale food fairs will be organised in various locations across the territory in the coming months, bringing together Mainland, Hong Kong and overseas gourmet food, with a view to enabling the public and visitors enjoy the good food in the city.

Furthermore, the official launch of Hong Kong’s HK$1bn global promotional campaign has received a fair bit of coverage as it looks to give away 500,000 air tickets to overseas visitors and 80,000 tickets to HongKongers, in an effort to raise the city's international image. The tickets distributed will be available first in Southeast Asia markets including Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia. Northeast Asia and mainland China will come next.

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