Coronavirus: Hong Kong expert suggests end to hotel quarantine for arrivals if they take daily PCR tests and results can be provided in under 8 hours
- Professor Ivan Hung from HKU says arrangement hinges on efficiency of tests, with isolation reduced to ‘3+4’ format, and eventually just seven days of screening
- Health officials report 2,995 new infections, including 204 imported ones, and no deaths
Overseas arrivals in Hong Kong could be spared hotel quarantine if they took daily nucleic tests for Covid-19 and the results were delivered in under eight hours, a top health expert suggested, as the city reported just under 3,000 new infections on Saturday.
Professor Ivan Hung Fan-ngai, chief of the infectious diseases division of the University of Hong Kong, proposed the idea a day after health secretary Lo Chung-mau said the government aimed to improve the capacity and speed of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing.
“Instead of 24 hours, if we could do it within eight hours or even four hours … that would definitely prevent the infected individual from going [into] the community. That would be very important in terms of controlling or containing the current wave of Covid,” Hung said.
He said enhanced PCR testing efficiency could first enable a “3+4” arrangement, comprising three days of hotel quarantine and four days of home isolation with regular tests.
“If the situation is stable, then daily PCR testing for seven days in a row could replace the quarantine arrangement,” Hung said, adding that this hinged on testing efficiency.
Fully vaccinated travellers from overseas currently need to stay at designated quarantine hotels for seven days and undergo four PCR tests in the first two weeks of their arrival, as well as take daily rapid antigen tests while in isolation.
Health officials reported 2,995 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday and no deaths. Among the new infections were 204 imported cases, the first time the 200 mark had been exceeded since the city’s fifth wave broke out in late December.