Chief Executive John Lee announced on Thursday that Covid-19 patients will no longer have to isolate from January 30, describing it as an important step towards Hong Kong's return to normality.

Speaking at a question and answer session at the Legislative Council, the CE said the coronavirus will be treated as an upper respiratory disease, as Omicron infections mostly only lead to mild symptoms in vaccinated patients.

"We have opened our borders [with the mainland] for over 10 days. The risk of infection has not been increased. The epidemic situation has been alleviating," Lee told lawmakers.

He said the daily caseload has dropped by around 90 percent from the recent peak of over 30,000 a day, adding that the population's immunity barrier has been greatly enhanced through mass vaccination and infection.

Lee stressed it's high time for the government to change its Covid management approach – from implementing mandatory measures to putting in place a voluntary arrangement for people to decide what’s best for them.

He said health officials will hold a press conference on Thursday afternoon to give more details.

A respiratory disease specialist, Leung Chi-chiu, said he thinks it's too risky to allow asymptomatic Covid patients to go to work from the end of this month.

"Although the government has asked these [asymptomatic patients] to avoid contact with high-risk persons, the problem is they may get into contact with these vulnerable people at work, they may then transmit the disease," he told RTHK.

Leung noted that there have been dozens of Covid-related deaths in recent days, and said that could be a sign that immunity is waning among elderly people, even for those who are triple-jabbed.