Starting April 20, Hong Kong will ban flights from India, the Philippines and Pakistan for two weeks after a mutant strain of Covid-19 known as N501Y was detected in the city, Reuters reported.

All three countries will be classified by Hong Kong as extremely high-risk as a result of multiple imported cases which were found to be carrying the strain in the past 14 days.

Airlines affected by the ban on the three countries include Cathay Pacific, Vistara, Hong Kong Airlines and Cebu Pacific.

Mutant strain has also been detected locally

The Hong Kong authorities made the announcement on April 18, after 29 of 30 cases announced on the same day were imported.

Hong Kong Free Press (HKFP) further reported that most of the imported cases were from India while the sole local case was found to be carrying the N501Y strain.

The city's government further noted that the local case is also Hong Kong's first case of the mutant strain with no travel history.

She is the girlfriend of another local case found on Saturday, Apr 17,  that was confirmed to have been infected with N501Y and had returned to Hong Kong in March, from Dubai.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) highlighted that prior to the two local cases of the mutant strain detected over the weekend, 223 cases infected with N501Y had been detected, all of them imported.

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