HONG KONG, March 17 (Xinhua) -- China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Chief Executive Carrie Lam said Tuesday that Hong Kong will quarantine for 14 days all arriving passengers from outside the region starting from Thursday to curb the spread of the COVID-19.

The new measure is included in a red outbound travel alert to be issued by the HKSAR government, which advises residents to avoid all non-essential trips abroad.

For the past two weeks, 50 new confirmed COVID-19 cases were imported ones out of all the 57 confirmed cases, Lam said at a media session before the HKSAR Executive Council meeting on Tuesday morning.