Hong Kong is reducing the period of time travelers might want to serve hotel quarantine, from seven days all the way down to three starting Friday.
“The seven-day quarantine hotel arrangement will probably be modified to 3 days in a quarantine hotel, plus 4 days of home medical surveillance,” Chief Executive John Lee said at a press conference Monday.
After completing the hotel quarantine, travelers can stay at home or in a hotel for the 4 days of surveillance. During this era people will give you the chance to depart their place of residence, but cannot enter “places where there may be energetic checking of vaccine passes,” Lee said in Cantonese.
That features bars, pubs, gyms and sweetness parlors. Individuals are also not allowed to go to nursing homes, schools and specified medical premises through the surveillance period.
“They can not take part in any activities where masks are to be taken off,” Lee added. In the event that they test negative on a rapid antigen test, they’ll take public transportation, go to work and enter shopping malls, he said.
“Now we have to strike a balance between risk level in addition to our economic activity. Where risks might be controlled, we would like to preserve maximum movement of individuals and to keep up Hong Kong’s competitiveness,” Lee said.
Hong Kong imposed strict border controls to stem the spread of Covid. But hundreds left the Chinese city as restrictive measures weighed on residents while most of the remaining of the world opened up.
Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau said, based on trends of imported cases, 80% of infections are picked up inside three days.
“An extra 4 nights in a quarantine hotel — which means seven nights in a quarantine hotel — isn’t cost effective and it’s going to also affect Hong Kong’s reference to the world,” he said at the identical press conference.
Shares of airline Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong jumped 2.36% following the announcement.
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