889

Very interesting. Thank you. I assume we'll get a follow-up on the quarantine, app and such.

Just how many people were on the flight and passing through the airport/hotel experience with you?

helvetic

I'm halfway through quarantine. Apparently they've changed the bracelet format a few times. started big and bulky, then they had a small (hospital-style) RFID band, and now it's back to the big bulky one. You pair it at the airport under supervision and then activate it at home. Open app, give location permission, and press a button and you're done. I've gotten one check-up call so far on the first day but nothing since. I'm told that the end of quarantine is just: take off bracelet at midnight and good to go.

One thing that's neat about HK quarantine is it defines 14 days as one day shorted than TW. In Taiwan I had to do day of arrival until midnight, then 14 * 24h. In HK it's day of arrival until midnight, and 13*24h. (i.e. you get out the first minute of the 14th day in HK, instead of the last minute of it in TW)

Flight was probably 25% full or so. In PE I was one of about 6 pax. Business class had one passenger only. Economy is where most people were.

There were some points in the airport process where I wasn't impressed by the precautions. There were a lot of interactions with staff members where they weren't exactly distant. We all touched the same forms etc. They're all pretty brief contacts but I was surprised we weren't treated with more precautions. I wonder what the staff have to go through, whether they're tested regularly, isolated from the rest of the population, etc. Airport staff seemed far less protected than AWE staff.

Other pax I interacted with due to how few flight there were and how they arrived at the same time were primarily only from the same flight. I believe that high risk arrivals (and there were signs about separating Beijing arrivals, which had a similarly timed flight as us) are separated directly at the onset.

Anyways, overall the procedures seemed to have quite a bit of caution and it'd be really hard for anything to slip through. Honestly I feel like after a negative test, arrivals from TW being subject to 14 days is completely overkill.

889

"Honestly I feel like after a negative test, arrivals from TW being subject to 14 days is completely overkill."

In Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau and the Mainland community transmission is kaput. There may be rare unexplained outbreaks, like Sha Tin, but they can be handled. It's just not going to get any better than this. How can it? Yet here we still are, essentially where we were three months ago.

An Exco member said a few weeks ago that of the thousands who had been quarantined after arriving from the Mainland, not even one tested positive on arrival, much less developed the infection during quarantine. What an extraordinary waste of human life.

With this mentality, Hong Kong will never re-open to the world, at least unless and until a vaccine is in widespread use sometime next year, if then.

A reasonable suspicion is that the second handover has destroyed any decision-making power in Hong Kong, and that any decisions from school exam questions on up must now be referred north.

percysmith

Not inability to decide, but keeping Hong Kong locked down is too easy to decide.

It's not like closing down a US state border which actually involves work and cost
We aren't facing Spain- or Thailand-levels of inbound tourism-induced unemployment

889

I'll let someone else look up the numbers, but Thailand and Spain are large countries with diversified economies, especially in manufacturing and agriculture. Hong Kong is now and has always been an entrepot. Along with Singapore, it's the most international of cities, but with quite a narrowly-based economy, one exceptionally vulnerable to precisely a shock like Covid.

Those hotel employees. Those ShaSha salesclerks. Those Cathay workers. And on and on. If unemployment hasn't become apparent in the city, it's probably because the Government has been pumping out lots of money. And probably because Hong Kong people tend to save for a rainy day. And most probably of all, because Hong Kong people are basically optimistic and feel everything will be back to normal in a short while. Nothwithstanding quite a bit of evidence to the contrary.

percysmith

Pumping out lots of money: well since Govt can pull off that one (using the current govt majority in Legco), why wouldn’t they? They don’t want the Mainland Virus (I use this term advisedly) with the anti-ELAB/national security law factions to merge.

889

I'm not saying pumping out money is bad in this context. Most developed countries are doing it.

I'm just saying it's masking the unemployment costs of the epidemic in Hong Kong. At some point, probably not too far off, the pumps are going to slow then stop. At that point we'll start seeing the effects of virus-induced unemployment on the streets.

(I looked to get a haircut yesterday. I'd say over half the small neighbourhood barber shops just aren't there any longer.)

percysmith

They won’t stop til September. Govt (both of them) needs this Potemkin village.

percysmith

YVR Uncle received an exemption to transit HK on his way back from Dongguan to Canada without 14-day quarantine on HK end.

889

What are the mechanics of getting that or the other exemptions Hong Kong has apparently opened up? I've seen no mention of precisely what body on the Mainland handles the applications.

percysmith

He definitely qualifies for cross-border business owner.

889

Does he just show up at Shenzhen Bay with some paperwork? That'd be a surprise. Presumably there's some procedure to get clearance in advance. Does the PSB do the clearance on behalf of the HK Government?

percysmith

Apply to Commerce and Industry Department.

889

Arriving passengers may no longer have to wait around for their test results. From today's SCMP:

"Given the latest situation, the Department of Health announced on Friday that 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 the Hong Kong International Airport had 'substantially increased recently'".

BuildingMyBento

Probably tone-deaf, but I was invited to an HK expo in early September...and I'm in the US now.
I see no likelihood of this visit happening.