Hong Kong will lift more social distancing rules this Friday, allowing restaurants to operate at full capacity and bars to increase guest limit.
The government announced on Tuesday afternoon that it will significantly relax social distancing rules after the city successfully contained the coronavirus outbreak.
Starting from Friday, group gathering will be relaxed to allow up to 50 people for outdoor activities, while scrapping limit for indoor gatherings.
Restaurants which previously were asked to operate at half capacity can now resume full operation. Wedding banquets, starting from Friday, will also be allowed to resume.
For bars, pubs and nightclubs, the previous restriction of limiting four people each table will be relaxed to allow eight people.
Although the government relaxed majority of the social distancing rules, a total lift is not yet part of the discussion.
“Can we relax to an extent of a total lift? That’s quite risky, as we see some cities such as Beijing had some new local cases, while some other countries had a return of cases too, so we must be very careful,” says Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam on her Tuesday morning briefing.
The new measures came after Hong Kong successfully contained the outbreak which paved way for normalization of daily life. Last week, the city’s Ocean Park and Disneyland have re-opened to guests.
Hong Kong also allows transfer flights at the airport, but its arrival ban is still in place till September 18.
