HONG KONG, 10 August 2022: Just days after Hong Kong announced it would ease its quarantine rules this Friday, the territory’s Airport Authority Hong Kong (AAHK) said the adjustment should help air traffic to recover.
AAHK is working closely with the airport community to prepare for an expected increase in flights and passengers following the reduction of quarantine days for inbound travellers. However, reducing mandatory hotel quarantine to three days doesn’t go far enough for the territory’s tourism industry mainly because it is followed by “home medical surveillance lasting another four days.
Hong Kong is reducing the mandatory hotel quarantine from seven days to three starting Friday, 12 August, according to a government announcement last Sunday.
After the quarantine, travellers will need to undertake “home medical surveillance” for four days. Still, Hong Kong’s chief executive John Lee said he was “striking a balance between risk level as well as our economic activity.”
After completing the hotel quarantine, travellers can stay at home or in a hotel for four days of surveillance. They will be able to leave their residences but cannot enter “places where there is active checking of vaccine passes,” Lee announced.
That eliminates visits to bars, pubs, gyms and beauty parlours. People are also not allowed to visit nursing homes, schools and specified medical premises during the surveillance period.
“They cannot participate in any activities where masks are to be taken off,” Lee added. “If they test negative on a rapid antigen test, they can take public transportation, go to work and enter shopping malls,” he explained. Meanwhile, China shows no sign of backing away from its ‘zero-Covid’ strategy as Asia’s popular destinations come to terms with the possibility there will be no return for Chinese tour groups, possibly until Chinese New Year 2023 at the earliest.
