More than 2,300 residents back home after quarantine rule eased

More than 2,300 Hong Kong residents have left quarantine facilities for home, days after the government ordered them to be isolated after coronavirus variant carriers were found to be living in the same residential buildings as them.

The residents will have to get tested four times in the following 21 days, the Department of Health said in a statement late Sunday (May 9) night.

Health authorities evacuated and quarantined all residents of at least six residential blocks in recent days as soon as at least one carrier of a mutated strain of COVID-19 was identified in each building. The rule was criticized as too harsh and adjusted by the government on May 7. Residents in buildings linked to mutated virus strains no longer have to serve 21 days of quarantine as initially required, but will be required to self-monitor over 21 days and get tested four times over the stretch.

Five of the city's 11 cases with infections caused by mutated strains involved foreign domestic helpers, and three were identified during a mandatory testing program targeting all the helpers in the city.

Nearly 340,000 helpers had been tested, while 40,000 had received two vaccine jabs and were therefore exempt, the government said in a separate statement.

ALSO READ: HK widens vaccine access to ages 16 and up, logs 6 new cases

A spokesman for the Food and Health Bureau thanked all helpers and their employers for their cooperation in complying with the exercise that ended on Sunday.

As of Sunday, more than 1.07 million residents had received their first vaccine dose, while 670,200 people, or 10.2 percent of the total population, had been fully vaccinated.

(Source: China Daily)