Hong Kong bans flights from ‘high risk’ UK to curb virus

Ban comes amid heightened tensions between the UK and China over semi-autonomous Hong Kong, a former British colony.

Hong Kong will ban all passenger flights from the UK starting Thursday as it seeks to curb the spread of new variants of the coronavirus. In a Hong Kong government statement on Monday, the UK was classified as “extremely high risk“ because of the “recent rebound of the epidemic situation in the UK and the widespread Delta variant virus strain there”. Under the classification, people who have stayed in the UK for more than two hours will be restricted from boarding passenger flights to Hong Kong.