Letters | Hong Kong should reopen to the world because we can

Readers discuss why the Hong Kong government should make the reopening decision it can make, a missed opportunity with voluntary testing, problems arising from flight resumption and worry about the airline industry

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PPE-clad travellers wait to check in at Hong Kong International Airport on April 3. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Published: 11:30am, 12 Apr 2022Updated: 2:44pm, 12 Apr 2022

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I refer to the letter published on April 5 headlined “Mainland essential to Hong Kong’s future”.

Part of Hong Kong’s advantage is that it’s within a five-hour flight of half of the world’s population but the city is now almost completely cut off from the rest of the world, mainly by our own design.

What made me choose to stay in Hong Kong was the opportunity to fly home to visit my parents twice a year and take short weekend getaways around the region without decimating my bank account or taking long leave from work. Over the past two years, I’ve missed funerals, weddings, two Chinese New Years and am about to miss the birth of my sister’s firstborn while the rest of my family are making plans to visit her in London.

I’m sure a lot of non-locals who call Hong Kong home have faced similar situations. Not all of us have high-paying jobs that make two weeks or even seven days in a quarantine hotel possible.

For people who have received at least two doses of approved vaccines, international travel is largely back to normal in major cities and countries around the world. If Hong Kong wanted to, it could lift quarantine and flight restrictions for travellers from the rest of the world tomorrow with minimal impact on local infection numbers. The only reason it has not done so is because it prioritises reopening the border with mainland China. While Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor professes a neutral stance, she appears to me to have clearly taken a side on the border reopening issue.