Secretary for Food and Health, Sophia Chan Siu-chee said in a press briefing today that wearing a face mask in indoor public spaces and public transport terminus and interchanges will be mandatory with effective from midnight tomorrow until August 5. The nine specified places are Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Philippines, South Africa, and the United States. Chan said between July 8 and yesterday, there have been 719 new coronavirus cases in Hong Kong, and 605, or 84 percent of them, are local cases. There are also many local cases with unknown source of infection, showing that there are "invisible" chains of transmission in the community and the risk of a large-scale outbreak is very high. She said the next one to two weeks are crucial, and urged people to stay at home, avoid going out as much as possible and stop all unnecessary gatherings, especially meal gatherings.

Source: The Standard July 22, 2020 05:48 UTC