Coronavirus: Indian groups in Hong Kong call for home stays for returnees, not quarantine camps
- Representatives of 30 organisations meet Indian consul general to discuss situation
- Health department says air arrivals from low-risk areas can wait for their Covid-19 test results at home or in hotels if designated facilities are full
That came as the Department of Health announced on Friday air arrivals from low-risk areas could wait for their Covid-19 test results at home or in hotels if designated waiting facilities were full, as the number of inbound travellers at Hong Kong International Airport had “substantially increased recently”.
But it is understood the new measure would not cover returnees from India, considered by the government to be a higher-risk country.
Hong Kong recorded five more Covid-19 cases, all imported, on Friday. The latest additions brought the city’s tally of infections to 1,247. The five cases involved people arriving from Pakistan, India, Kazakhstan, Britain and the Philippines.
The 30 groups, which represent around 30,000 Hong Kong residents of Indian origin, met Indian Consul General Priyanka Chauhan on Friday to discuss the situation.
Chauhan said she supported all options that would meet the government’s public health priorities, and at the same time enhance the overall quarantine capacity available for returnees.
“I hope the Hong Kong government will implement its public health policies in a fair, transparent, equitable and objective manner,” she said in a statement to the Post.
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The government will stop using a new public housing estate in Fo Tan as a quarantine centre, which had 1,739 flats and accounted for 80 per cent of the isolation facilities, by the end of July. It is building additional quarantine facilities, with construction at Penny’s Bay camp on Lantau Island expected to be completed in phases between July and September. The project will provide around 1,500 quarantine units.
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“There is a bottleneck for any returnees from India because they are not allowed to go for home quarantine, and the government does not have the capacity,” said resident Kavita Khosa, who is assisting the Indian task force on returnees.
Among those at the meeting was Sohan Goenka from the Hong Kong Indian Diamond Association who asked the government to allow home quarantine for residents.
“There are limited quarantine facilities and if the flights continue at this speed it could take many more months to bring Hong Kong residents home,” he said.
The task force also held a meeting with the Department of Health and Security Bureau in June to discuss the situation.
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Social enterprise boss and lawyer Khosa went to India in February on a business trip, hoping to return in a few weeks. She was left stranded there after the Indian government declared a nationwide lockdown in March. The 57-year-old flew to London in May where she spent two weeks in home quarantine, before returning to Hong Kong on June 3.
As of Friday, 410 Covid-19 patients in Hong Kong had a travel history to Britain, with Pakistan coming in second at 112, then the United States at 88 and India with 53.
Khosa said she believed quarantine treatment should apply equally whether one arrived from the United States or India.
“There are families who are separated, the elderly, the sick. We have received a letter from a mother … who is suicidal and in deep mental distress due to being separated from her young children for the past five months. Are we waiting for a catastrophe?” she said.
Khosa said they had also received letters from people who had been evicted from their homes, and had their furniture thrown out onto the street, and from people who had lost their jobs for not reporting back to work. “This is a humanitarian crisis.”
The Hong Kong government requires people who return from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and South Africa to be quarantined for 14 days in government centres.
The Department of Health said the government had been adopting a risk-and evidence-based approach in its control measures.
It said the situation in India had worsened over the past two months, with the country having the fourth highest number of cases in the world.
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“Among 142 imported cases recorded in Hong Kong from June 6 to July 3, 41 were imported from India while only three and two cases were imported from the United Kingdom and United States respectively,” the spokesman said.
He added that 3 per cent of the returnees from India since June 18 had tested positive for Covid-19. The department said it would monitor the situation and review the arrangement as necessary.
India had seen 648,315 Covid-19 cases with 18,655 deaths, as of Saturday.The United States, Brazil and Russia make up the top three countries with the highest number of cases.
The health department said it considered India as higher risk because of its “relatively low testing rate per capita”.
It said the rate in the last two weeks of June was about 2,000 tests per million population.
“This is on a low side compared with a testing rate of about 6,500 in Hong Kong, 14,000 in the UK and 23,500 in the US in the past two weeks.”
The Hong Kong government arranged four chartered flights for residents from India in May and June, repatriating around 850 people.
In addition, four private charters were arranged with the permission of Hong Kong authorities, with three landing in the city. The Post understands there are no further flights planned as yet.
The Immigration Department said it had contacted 6,100 Hong Kong residents in India and 1,690 people had returned to the city.
“Considering the traffic restrictions still in place across India, and having regard to the quarantine arrangement for the returnees from designated countries assessed to be of higher risk and the capacities of relevant facilities, the government will assist them in returning to Hong Kong in an orderly manner in batches subject to the actual circumstances.”
Civic Party lawmaker Jeremy Tam Man-ho agreed that home quarantine should be allowed.
“The issue could give people a wrong impression that it’s racial discrimination, which I hope is not the intention of the government. We certainly do not want people to feel that way,” he said.
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Cheung
