Editorial | A clear explanation is needed on how app can help open Hong Kong border
- Beijing is not convinced that mandating the use of the ‘Leave Home Safe’ app is enough to reopen crossings, so it is up to the Hong Kong government to make the case to satisfy the central authorities and the public

Naturally, this raised hopes that Beijing would reopen the border to quarantine-free travel. They have been dashed because Beijing remains unhappy with the city’s infection-tracking mechanism and its many quarantine exemptions, aimed at preserving travel and commercial links.
So concerned are central government authorities that the exemptions could leave the mainland exposed, they have demanded they be severely curtailed if the border is to reopen. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has foreshadowed compliance.
But there is still no guarantee of reopening, given questions whether Hong Kong’s tracing system is up to standard. It would only take one more local case to prompt Beijing to rethink. As Hong Kong’s sole delegate to National People’s Congress Standing Committee Tam Yiu-chung has said, “the mainland attaches great importance to unknown cases”.
Indeed, Beijing barred Tam from attending a regular meeting of the committee not long after Hong Kong reported the isolated case. In a further move to assuage Beijing’s concerns about Hong Kong’s handling of the pandemic, recovered Covid-19 patients will have to spend 14 days in quarantine in a separate facility after discharge from hospital.
“In order to resume some quarantine-free travel with the mainland, we have to ensure that our anti-Covid-19 practices are more in line with the mainland, so that the mainland authorities will have the confidence to enable Hong Kong people to go into the mainland without being subject to the 14-day plus seven-day quarantine”.