A University of Hong Kong scholar says he does not think the reopening of the border with the mainland will worsen the Covid outbreak in Hong Kong, as the coronavirus has become endemic. Jin Dongyan said it should take experts around a week to gauge the effects of the reopening on the public healthcare system. Chief Secretary Eric Chan has said the SAR is seeking such a re-opening as early as Sunday, with a quota on cross-border travellers initially. Damon Pang reports:

The president of the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong, Allen Shi, says he hopes the local business sector will be allowed an initial quota of between 5,000 and 6,000 people each day for quarantine-free travel to the mainland. As Kelly Yu reports, he said many business people were desperate to cross the border to deal with pressing matters:

Health officials have appealed to patients with mild symptoms to seek treatment in the private sector, to avoid clogging up emergency wards at public hospitals. Hong Kong on Sunday confirmed 20,230 new Covid-19 cases, including 367 imported infections, while 74 Covid patients died. Vicky Kung reports:

The government says the supply of drugs containing paracetamol in Hong Kong remains stable and people should avoid panic-buying. As Priscilla Ng reports, officials say they have set aside supplies for people who are unable to get their hands on the medication:

Executive councillor and barrister, Ronny Tong, says local laws should be amended to clearly spell out the procedure needed to hire overseas lawyers for national security cases. Beijing issued an interpretation last week, saying the courts need approval from the Chief Executive or from the committee that safeguards national security, before allowing overseas lawyers on such cases. Tong said it was not a major issue as there were only a "miniscule" amount of national security cases here. But he said he did not want to see all overseas lawyers banned from an international city such as Hong Kong, so local laws should clearly spell out the procedure involved. He started by telling Janice Wong that Beijing's interpretation on overseas lawyers was "in line" with the international approach:

A green group says there has been confusion among both shoppers and vendors, just days after the introduction of new plastic bag rules. In addition to the levy being increased from 50 cents to $1, several exemptions have also been scrapped, meaning customers are no longer given free bags for frozen or chilled food items, as well as products wrapped in non-airtight packaging. While the levy does not apply to takeaway items or unpackaged food, each purchase or order is limited to one free plastic bag. The founder and executive director of The Green Earth, Edwin Lau, told Vicky Kung that many people still did not understand the new rules, and a lot more needed to be done to educate the public:

A study has found that up to 26.8 billion pieces of microplastics are being discharged into the ocean by sewage treatment facilities every day, seriously damaging Hong Kong’s marine ecosystem. City University said large quantities of plastic fragments smaller than five millimetres are discharged into the ocean even after a treatment process removes most of the pollutants from the water. The study noted microplastics that end up in the ocean may harm marine life and reduce their reproductivity by 20 percent, and that storm drains are also discharging microplastics into the ocean because water from drains is untreated. Professor Kenneth Leung from the Department of Chemistry told Vanessa Cheng that both the government and the public could do more to minimise the pollution:

Hong Kong Disneyland says the return of tourists to the city is key to its success. The loss-making theme park hopes the easing of Covid restrictions will help bring the magic back in 2023, as Natale Ching reports:

The head of the International Monetary Fund says 2023 is going to be a tough year and about a third of the global economy is expected to be in recession as the United States, Europe and China are all experience weakening activity. Kristalina Georgieva's comments suggest another cut to both the China and global growth outlooks could be coming later this month when the IMF typically unveils updated forecasts during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. RTHK's US economics correspondent, Barry Wood, said he thought there was a "50-50 chance" of the US economy going into recession this year. He told Samantha Butler more about Georgieva's comments: