Hong Kong will require all government employees to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, or tested for the virus every three days, authorities announced on Tuesday.
The news rules will go into effect on January 3, the statement said.
Employees who have a medical certificate to prove they are not eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine will be reimbursed for testing costs, while other employees will have to pay for themselves.
The government said the new measures were in response to “the growing number of infections linked to mutated strains of Covid-19 with high transmissibility around the world.”
Hong Kong has followed mainland China in adopting a “dynamic zero-Covid strategy”, closing its borders to much of the pandemic to non-residents and imposing quarantine requirements. strictly for returning residents.
To date, it has not recorded any local transmission of the Omicron variant.
