Opinion | Coronavirus: Soon, Hong Kong may set up ‘travel bubbles’ and even slowly bring back travel for leisure

Name: China’s Forbidden City opens on May Day as tens of millions travel after Covid-19 cases drop
Uploaded: 2020-05-21T09:00:14.000Z
Duration: 1 min 34 s
Description: China’s Forbidden City opens on May Day as tens of millions travel after Covid-19 cases drop

It will be a long time before the world as a whole goes back to its old travel habits – maybe not until well into next year. But it does not have to mean we must all be stuck in Hong Kong for another 12 or 18 months

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Two pilots are seated at a nearly deserted Hong Kong International Airport on May 7. A proposed “travel bubble” could allow relatively small numbers of people to travel among these territories without being quarantined. Photo: Reuters

Bernard Chan

Published: 5:00pm, 21 May 2020Updated: 1:05pm, 20 Oct 2020

With the number of newly detected coronavirus infections averaging around just one a day, Hong Kong is finally getting back to business. Government offices, sports facilities, gyms, bars and other establishments – apart from schools – are reopening.

However, in one major respect, we are not back to normal. Restrictions on entry for non-residents and a 14-day quarantine requirement mean that travel in and out of Hong Kong has almost dried up. At some point, we must start reopening our borders – at least selectively.

Some parts of the world are proposing “travel bubbles” to allow travel between territories that have managed to get the pandemic under control. For Hong Kong, the most likely arrangement of this sort would be initially for the mainland, Macau and Taiwan.

Let's make it clear that this is not about throwing open the doors to large numbers of tourists. The aim would be to enable relatively small numbers of people to travel among these territories without being quarantined. Truck drivers and certain government officials are already exempted.

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China’s Forbidden City opens on May Day as tens of millions travel after Covid-19 cases drop

There are also exemption mechanisms for some Hong Kong engineers, accountants and businesspeople who need to travel to the mainland. However, their mainland movements are limited, and the system does not exempt them from mainland quarantine.

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