Coronavirus: after two years of battling pandemic, will Hong Kong ever open up? Push vaccination rate above 90 per cent before thinking of ‘living with virus’, experts say

Government has relentlessly been trying to snuff out every source of infection and deploying various measures, with all signs point to it continuing with approach

Stark reality is Hong Kong is still facing a very low vaccination take-up rate among its most vulnerable groups, the elderly and chronically ill

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Published: 9:00am, 23 Jan 2022Updated: 1:47pm, 23 Jan 2022

In the second of a two-part series marking the second year of Hong Kong’s battle with the Covid-19 pandemic, we look at the shift in the zero-Covid policy and when the city will have its best chance of reopening its borders. Part one can be found here.

Just weeks before Omicron upended plans for celebrations to mark 2022, Hong Kong was busy hammering out details of a mainland border reopening and even launching an exposure-notification app to fit in with China’s requirements.

All such hopes were swiftly dashed when the new, more transmissive variant of the coronavirus was brought into the city by aircrew flouting their isolation arrangements. This weekend marks exactly two years since the city was ensnared in the global pandemic and as it battles this latest wave of infections, it would appear as nothing has changed in the past 24 months.

Harsh quarantine rules remain in force, travel has been severely curtailed and recently retightened social-distancing rules have put a dampener on social activities. Yet another Lunar New Year looks to be a quiet occasion as authorities have discouraged large gatherings.

The government has been relentlessly trying to snuff out every source of infection and deploying various measures. It has imposed flight bans, placed a record number of 162 countries on the Group A list requiring arrivals to do 21 days of quarantine, locked down buildings for testing – including an unprecedented five-day lockdown at a public housing block ordered on Friday – and even culled hamsters.

All signs show none of the measures easing quickly. If anything, they all point to Hong Kong continuing with the approach of not living with the virus any time soon, according to public health experts and a political commentator. The key reason has to do with Beijing’s strategy of dealing with the virus and the city’s move to align itself with the approach as it has deemed it more important economically and politically to reopen the border with the mainland than welcoming the world.