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Letters | Neither 3+4 nor 4+3: Hong Kong should just end its hotel quarantine policy, not just tweak it
- Readers discuss the government’s latest plan to adjust its quarantine policy, highlighting the policy’s continuing impact on tourism and family reunion
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It is with weary resignation that I read that the authorities are now actively considering cutting hotel quarantine to a mere three or four days, after their excellent start of removing the despised flight ban mechanism.
Once again, the authorities are dragging their feet, and refusing to face the reality that Covid-19 is endemic in Hong Kong, and that the roughly 6 per cent of imported cases have no significant effect.
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The only beneficiaries of the quarantine policy appear to be quarantine hotels; quite why their financial well-being is more important than the rest of the Hong Kong economy is an open question.
A recent report from a group of four University of Hong Kong experts, including two government advisers, was unequivocal and completely explicit: “Imported cases from travellers do not make a difference to the local epidemic situation. As all returning travellers are required to be fully vaccinated, they would not place undue burden on our hospital system even if they have Covid.”
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The rest of the world has moved on. Hong Kong is no longer at risk of being left behind, it has been left behind, a former international city reduced to a backwater stuck in 2020. It needs to get back to normal now, this month, not at some unspecified point in the future that never comes.
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