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HONG KONG, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Hong Kong will ease strict
coronavirus restrictions from Feb. 18, re-opening sports and
entertainment facilities and extending dining hours, Health
Secretary Sophia Chan said on Wednesday, as the city logged a
steady decline in daily cases.
Chan said catering businesses would be able to operate until
10 pm, granting them an additional four hours. Beauty salons,
theme parks, cinemas and all sports facilities would be allowed
to resume with conditions in place.
"We are cautiously optimistic on the pandemic," Chan told a
news conference, adding that she hoped the city could quickly
get back on its feet.
New cases have fallen to below 30 a day from over 80 at the
end of January.
Separately, a government advisory panel for COVID-19
vaccines said on Wednesday that China's Sinovac vaccine was safe
and effective, bringing it a step closer to getting the
greenlight in the Asian financial hub.
The panel said it was awaiting further information from
Sinovac and would thereafter make a recommendation to the
government, which has the final decision on whether to approve
the vaccine.
Hong Kong's government last week said it was exempting
Chinese drug maker Sinovac from publishing results of its third
phase clinical trials in medical journals due to the "urgency"
of the need for vaccines.
The BioNTech vaccine – the first vaccine approved in Hong
Kong- was required to have published their results in a medical
journal before being examined by the advisory panel.
The first batch of one million BioNTech doses is expected to
arrive in the second half of February.
Hong Kong's vaccination program has lagged other developed
cities and mainland China which started its vaccine program in
July last year. Hong Kong has a separate approval process from
the mainland.
A University of Hong Kong survey found that fewer than 30%
of people would accept the Sinovac vaccine.
Hong Kong has secured a total of 22.5 million doses of
COVID-19 vaccine from Fosun Pharma-BioNTech, Sinovac and
Oxford-AstraZeneca.
The city of 7.5 million people has recorded around 10,700
infections and 188 deaths since January last year.
(Reporting by Farah Master; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
