The Hong Kong government will shorten the hotel quarantine period for incoming travelers from 21 days to 14 days, plus seven days of home quarantine, from February 5, after being urged by medical experts and foreign companies to fine-tune its anti-epidemic strategy.
The government announced the relaxation of its isolation rules on Thursday, when the daily number of Covid cases recorded a high of 164. This included 48 imported cases and 116 local infections. Medical experts said there were at least 30 transmission chains in the city, which will cause more virus outbreaks.
While the quarantine relaxation seems to have been a response to calls from Hong Kong-based foreign companies, the 14-day quarantine requirement has remained the world’s toughest as most countries have started canceling their travel restrictions.
A draft report from the European Chamber of Commerce predicted Hong Kong would not allow quarantine-free international travel as most of the mainland’s 1.4 billion people had not received any mRNA vaccines, which could help people create enough antibodies to fight the Omicron variant.
Meanwhile, media reports said the Hong Kong government was considering expanding its “vaccine pass” scheme so that only vaccinated people could use public transport and visit shopping malls. They said the government expected to boost the vaccination rate, which refers to people who received at least one dose of vaccine, to about 90% by February 24 from the current 73%.
The fifth epidemic wave in Hong Kong, which caused more than 100 local infections per day, has recently triggered a debate about whether the city should continue its “zero local infections” goal, or shift to the “living with the coronavirus” strategy.
Last week, the Hong Kong government ordered thousands of hamsters to be surrendered for disposal as traces of the coronavirus were found in 11 animals in a pet shop.
“With the roll-out of highly effective vaccines as well as extremely high rates of infection, large swathes of the global population have decent functional immunity against the virus,” Siddharth Sridhar, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong, wrote in a post on social media last Saturday.
“The need for zero Covid has largely faded in many parts of the world.”
Sridhar added that Hong Kong had no choice but to continue its zero Covid policy as its elderly were woefully under-vaccinated, while the policy was also a necessary requisite for the resumption of quarantine-free travel, or a so-called “border reopening,” with the mainland.
He said if Hong Kong people were frustrated with the hamster culls, building lockdowns, compulsory testing notices, expensive imported goods or the impossibility of traveling with a 21-day quarantine, they should remember that the real issue here was zero Covid.
Leung Pak-yin, a former chief executive of the Hospital Authority, said on January 21 that it was unrealistic that Hong Kong could maintain its “zero local infections” strategy as virus outbreaks were reported in different districts in the city.
Leung said the government should strengthen its “vaccine pass” scheme to boost the vaccination rate. He said the current virus containment policy might hurt people’s livelihoods and the local economy.
Ronnie Chan, a Hong Kong billionaire and the chairman of Hang Lung Group, said Thursday that as Omicron was more like a big flu than a lethal virus, the Hong Kong government might consider changing its anti-epidemic rules. Chan admitted it was difficult for Hong Kong to achieve zero Covid cases.
On January 19, the American Chamber of Commerce released its 2022 Business Sentiment Survey Report, which said Hong Kong’s international travel restrictions to contain Covid-19 weighed heavily on both company and personal sentiment.
“With six out of 10 businesses based in Hong Kong as their global or regional headquarters, hefty quarantine rules and travel restrictions continue to cause significant disruptions in their offices outside Hong Kong. Over 30% of respondents have had to delay new investments in Hong Kong and 30% struggle to fill senior executive roles,” said the report.
“Travel restrictions also weigh heavily on sentiment about living in Hong Kong, from both a company and personal perspective. Over 40% are more likely to leave the city from a personal perspective, and over 25% of companies say they are more likely to leave Hong Kong.”
The European Chamber of Commerce said in a draft report that the zero Covid policy could keep Hong Kong cut off from most of the world until 2024 and fuel a large-scale exodus of international workers and executives.
The most likely scenario for Hong Kong would be that it would not reopen until China rolls out its mRNA vaccine across its 1.4 billion population, which could take until late 2023 or early 2024, according to the draft report, which has not been made public.
Under all this pressure, the Hong Kong government on Thursday announced it was fine-tuning its strategy to focus more on boosting the vaccination rate and slightly relaxing its quarantine requirement.
At present, only fully-vaccinated Hong Kong residents are allowed to fly to Hong Kong from most foreign places. They are required to undergo compulsory quarantine for 21 days at designated quarantine hotels at their own cost.
Those who departed from the United States, the United Kingdom and 13 African countries are required to spend their first four days at the Penny’s Bay Quarantine Center after arrival.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced on Thursday that travelers would have to spend only 14 days in a hotel instead of 21, citing the shorter incubation period for the dominant Omicron strain of Covid-19. The change takes effect on February 5.
“It will help the local business community if they want to do outbound business travel because it’s not quite so onerous coming back,” George Cautherley, the vice-chairman of the International Chamber of Commerce, told RTHK on Friday. “But I don’t think it will help the international community consider inbound business travel to Hong Kong.
“I think we would have to eliminate it. Most places in the world have eliminated quarantine, so we aren’t competitive in that respect,” added Cautherley.
The United Kingdom said on Monday that Covid tests for vaccinated travelers to England would be scrapped from February 11. Thailand said it would resume its quarantine-free travel program from February 1.
Some medical advisers said on January 10 that the government should shorten the quarantine period for incoming travelers from 21 days to 14 days.
Yuen Kwok-yung, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, said it was rare that travelers tested positive between the 14th and 21st day after their arrival as Omicron had a short incubation period. It took 17 days for the Hong Kong government to announce a change in its policy.
In fact, the quarantine requirement of spending 14 days at designated hotels plus seven days at home was in line with the mainland’s arrangements. The Hong Kong government set the quarantine period at 21 days last year as it found that some travelers tested positive on the 18-20th day after arrival.
Later scientists found that these people were infected at the quarantine hotels, not from their departure countries.
A local woman, who arrived in Hong Kong from Pakistan on December 20, was infected with the Omicron variant at a quarantine hotel during the later days of her 21-day quarantine period. She then brought the virus to the Kwai Chung Estate and caused a large-scale virus outbreak there.
On Thursday, Lam said the government was mulling an amendment to the law to expand the coverage of the “vaccine pass” scheme, which now forbids unvaccinated people from entering restaurants, schools, public libraries and entertainment premises including bars and gyms.
Media reports said the government might require people to be vaccinated before they could enter shopping malls or use public transport.
Read: No end in sight to Hong Kong’s ‘zero-Covid’ clampdown
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