Coronavirus: domestic workers queue up outside testing centres across Hong Kong braving scorching heat

Some dress in red after a group urged workers to wear the colour as a sign of protest over the requirement for another test

Domestic helpers had nine days to comply with the first screening order, but this time have about two weeks

Reading Time:3 minutes

Domestic helpers queue up for a compulsory Covid-19 testing at Victoria Park, Causeway Bay. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 12:32am, 17 May 2021Updated: 1:42pm, 17 May 2021

Domestic workers lined up outside Covid-19 testing centres on one of the hottest days of the year in Hong Kong on Sunday to comply with what many called a discriminatory government order they be screened again.

A few of them were dressed in red after a migrant rights group last week urged workers to wear the colour as a sign of protest over the requirement that all 340,000 helpers undergo a second test, despite the first round at the start of the month uncovering just three cases.

In ordering the second tests, the government pointed to the long incubation period of mutant strains circulating in Hong Kong, but workers questioned the logic.

“It’s hurtful when the government says we need to get tested just because we go out to meet friends once a week,” said Sheila Tebia Bonifacio, 37, on Chater Road in Central.

“If we get infected with Covid-19, we risk losing our jobs here in Hong Kong, many of us are breadwinners for our families back home.”

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