Amid the recent surge in the Omicron variant of Covid-19, Hong Kong has announced that it is closing its borders to passengers from eight countries for 14 days ⁠— the UK and the US included.

The ban will come into effect from January 8 and will also impact passengers seeking to enter the city from Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan and the Philippines, including transit passengers.

It will last for 14 days.

"The Government announced (January 5) that in view of the rapidly worsening global pandemic situation due to the Omicron variant, it will, from 0.00am on January 8, implement the place-specific flight suspension mechanism for Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States of America," the Hong Kong government said in a statement.

All passenger flights from these eight places will be prohibited from landing in Hong Kong, and at the same time, persons who have stayed in these places for more than two hours will be restricted from boarding passenger flights for Hong Kong, so as to stop persons from the relevant places from travelling to Hong Kong via transit, it added.

Hong Kong has also tightened Covid-19 measures in the city including closure of leisure facilities and a ban on non-essential gatherings.

Impact on bellyhold capacity

While it remains unclear how this ban will affect the bellyhold cargo operations to and from the places included in the ban, carriers will likely respond by cutting flights for the duration of the ban.

Earlier, Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific announced halting all long-haul freighter services amid more stringent air cargo crew quarantine rules although the pause is set to be lifted today, January 6.

"The Government will review in due course whether the place-specific flight suspension mechanism should be lifted or continued by taking into account the latest global and local epidemic developments," Hong Kong said, adding that although the place-specific flight suspension mechanism is an "extremely stringent measure" with Hong Kong often tagged as an international city — the measure needs to be done.

"Hong Kong is at the moment facing the threat of a rapid deterioration of the local epidemic situation. We must act quickly and decisively to lower the risk to the local epidemic situation," a spokesperson said.