Hong Kong Eases Quarantine for Inoculated Travelers

(Bloomberg) — Hong Kong will ease quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated inbound travelers and vaccinated residents who are close contacts of people infected with Covid-19, loosening one of the world’s strictest policies amid efforts to encourage inoculation.

The mandatory hotel quarantine for fully vaccinated people coming from a handful of low-risk countries including Australia, New Zealand and Singapore will be shortened to seven days from 14, health authorities said Friday at a briefing. They will be required to self-monitor for an additional week. The changes, which were announced earlier, will take effect May 12.

Inoculated people from high- and medium-risk origins will have their stays reduced from 21 days to two weeks plus an additional seven days of self-monitoring. Those coming from extremely high-risk areas will still need to quarantine for three weeks, even if they’ve received vaccinations.

Quarantines will also be shortened from 14 days at government facilities to seven days at home for fully vaccinated residents found to be close contacts of people infected with Covid. When such cases involve new, more dangerous variants, fully vaccinated people will still need to stay in a government quarantine center for 14 days, followed by a week at home.

The loosening is “an important step for us to reopen our economy,” Food and Health Secretary Sophia Chan said.

Inoculation Efforts

It’s the Asian financial center’s latest step to encourage vaccinations. Low inoculation rates could hamper Hong Kong’s efforts to fully reopen its economy and could dilute its attractiveness to global businesses.

Only about 13.6% of the population has received at least one dose, according to Bloomberg’s Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker — lagging behind competing financial hubs like Singapore, which has a rate of 23.9%.

Authorities in recent weeks have sent all residents of several buildings where cases with variants were found to quarantine for 21 days — including those who were fully vaccinated or tested negative. The decision fueled long-simmering frustration over what many in the city see as a confusing and inconsistent virus policy, with residents questioning why they would be sent to quarantine despite being fully inoculated.

Quarantine pushback

Steps to encourage vaccination include reopening bars and nightclubs only to inoculated people and allowing them to gather in larger groups at restaurants. A travel bubble with Singapore set for the end of the month will also allow only vaccinated people.

Some residents at one building sent to quarantine started an online petition this week opposing “mass detention,” arguing that the government was classifying large groups of people as close contacts in an “arbitrary way.”

“The decision to deport 1,027 residents to government camps or quarantine hotels and detain them in small rooms for 21 days is not based on sound evidence and poses a threat to the health and well-being of everyone involved,” they wrote.

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