LettersHong Kong’s Covid-19 rules make travel a heartbreaking dilemma for residents

Hong Kong’s strict border control and quarantine restrictions mean many people have been unable to see their families abroad for two years. The city has the expertise and resources to strike a better balance

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A passenger from London arrives at Hong Kong airport on December 22 last year, after Hong Kong announced a ban on all passenger flights from Britain in bid to stop a mutated strain of Covid-19 from reaching the city. The possibility of flight bans, in addition to lengthy quarantine, makes travel into Hong Kong a journey fraught with pitfalls. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 6:30am, 14 Nov 2021Updated: 1:29pm, 15 Nov 2021

My husband and I moved to Hong Kong in 2012. Initially, it was supposed to be just an experiment. Fast forward 10 years, we’ve not only embraced the city as our home, we have also built a family here.

Thanks to the geographic proximity, we were never “disconnected” from our families in Bangladesh – we were able to meet at least two to three times a year.

Since last year, things changed rapidly due to the pandemic. We didn’t have the slightest idea that we wouldn’t be seeing our families for two years when we were coming back from Dhaka in December 2019.

Even at the highest point of the pandemic, we had full faith in the administration. When most other places were suffering, we stayed in Hong Kong living in a safe cocoon of our own. One must give due credit to the government and the community for managing that.

We had hopes that things would get better with higher vaccination rates. With the city recording near “zero-Covid” for quite a few months, we saw light at the end of the tunnel.

But since mid-August, things changed rapidly. Quarantine is now 21 days for arrivals from most places, regardless of whether one is vaccinated or not. Finding a room in a quarantine hotel is as hard as winning the jackpot.