Coronavirus: Hong Kong cuts quarantine period to 2 weeks for high-risk countries but that’s still too long for business travellers, industry groups say
- Chief Executive Carrie Lam concedes cutting period by seven days will not be enough to satisfy business community
- Quarantine move comes after persistent complaints from travellers and companies paying high quarantine costs for employees
Business leaders have expressed disappointment at a decision by Hong Kong authorities to only ease the quarantine period for travellers entering the city to 14 days and extend Covid-19 social-distancing curbs for two more weeks.
While welcoming the shortened quarantine requirements for inbound visitors from 162 high-risk places from February 5, the city’s largest trade body, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, said the isolation period, reduced from three weeks, was still too long for business travellers.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor described it as a science-based decision because the highly infectious Omicron variant had a relatively short incubation period.
But the chamber’s CEO George Leung Siu-kay told the Post the quarantine period was too much although the reduction would help ease some stresses.
“Two weeks’ quarantine remains too long for business travellers. This certainly should help alleviate some of the stress on cross-border business operations and talent shortages due to the lockdown,” he said.
Lam conceded that cutting the quarantine period by seven days would not be enough to satisfy the business community but further reduction would be “a very dangerous move” for Hong Kong given the relatively low vaccination rate especially among the elderly.