The US has amended Hong Kong’s COVID-19 travel advisory to the lowest level after mistakenly increasing it to “moderate.”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s raising of Hong Kong’s warning Tuesday confused many in the city, including health experts. Hong Kong’s daily COVID-19 cases have remained in the single digits since late April, and the last reported local infection was over a month ago.
Ben Cowling, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), told SCMP that the raised advisory might be an error.
The city’s COVID-19 travel advisory has since been revised back to level one, the lowest on the four-tier scale, on the CDC’s website.
Hong Kong has recorded 12,210 coronavirus cases as of Tuesday, with a total of 50 infections—all imported—over the past 14 days. While the Delta variant has swept parts of Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, Hong Kong has not seen any outbreaks related to the more contagious strain.
The city, however, is still struggling to boost its vaccination rate. As of Tuesday evening, just over 61% of the population have received both COVID-19 jabs.
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