HONG KONG — The Hong Kong government, which has faced growing demands to evacuate its residents from mainland China after one died of the coronavirus, said on Monday that it would begin bringing people back from Hubei Province, the center of the outbreak.

Thousands of Hong Kong residents have been unable to return after much of Hubei was put on lockdown last month. Their worries were heightened when officials said on Sunday that a 77-year-old Hong Kong man who was infected with the coronavirus had died in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei.

Hong Kong lawmakers had demanded to know why some Hong Kong residents in Japan were whisked home on chartered flights last week, while others remained stuck in mainland China.

“We know that it was not only a decision for the Hong Kong government,” said Ivan Choy, a political science lecturer at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “It was also the decision of the Japanese and the mainland governments.”