HONG KONG: Hong Kong will reduce the mandatory hotel quarantine for overseas arrivals to three days from a week, the city’s leader said.
The southern Chinese city remains one of the few places in the world, together with mainland China, to require a quarantine to guard against travellers spreading Covid-19 to the local population.
The policy taking effect on Friday will be Hong Kong’s shortest quarantine for arrivals since the pandemic began.
Hong Kong leader John Lee said arriving travellers must quarantine three days in a designated hotel, then undergo four days of medical surveillance during which their movements will be restricted via the use of a health code system.
Lee said the new policy of three days in quarantine was made after scientific evidence and data had been analysed to control the risk factors.
“We also have to balance the risks against the economic activities and the social lives of (people in) Hong Kong,” Lee added.
“(The data) gives us the indication that the risk factor of people who have finished three days quarantine in a designated hotel is actually no more than the risk level of transmission in society,” he said.
The changes to Covid-19 policies come in spite of an increase in daily infections. — AP
