Experience with HK Arrival Quarantine
 

Family of 6 flying back to HK later this week. All HK residents. Their flight arrives at 12am. Does anyone have any experience on the procedures?

From what I understand they will be taken to Asia Expo. Tested and then transported to Regal Hotel Kowloon City.

Given the late arrival time, anyone have any experiences? They are traveling with young kids so they are a bit concerned on logistics and food available in the hotel.

Anyone have any experience? Please share if you can. Thank you.

see link in this post in the Hong Kong destination forum
(I don't have any personal experience, so I have no information about food availability at that hotel)

no personal experience but from a friend of mine, her flight arrived at 10pm, got tested, carted to Regal Oriental, left 1pm the next day. food is served in a plastic bento box with 3 compartments (i.e. 25% veg, 25% meat which was really just two chicken wings, 50% plain rice) and looks incredibly shite.

You will be happier if you imagine that is prison food...

I've only heard bad things, on the rumour-mill / friend-of-friends type. In short: Do it if you really need to, be prepared for a pretty rubbish 12 to 36 hours, and a terrible two weeks if you do test positive, or are unlucky enough to arrive from a country that is suddenly added to a quarantine blacklist, like Pakistan was whilst some residents were in the air. AFAIK there isn't any special treatment with or without kids as far as I understand.

What you have described seems to match what I had also heard, the real issue is going to be time (variable, the earlier in the morning you can arrive the better, as it seems to be sequential, but also processing those who arrived the night before. They only do tests in normal working hours I understand, and it takes approximately 3-4 hours then for the results, but with a variable number of people ahead of you in the queue). If you do pass then you can go home / go into a hotel for mandatory governenment self-quarantine, so make sure you have a way to get food/drinks delivered, or ideally have a family member prepare that for you.

Read this article which isn't a good experience, but is probably reasonable at setting expectations: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/...t-against-poor

Please check HK quarantine support group page on FB for more info.... It's really not that bad guys...

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2788738214495345

no matter how you sugar coat this, Quarantine procedure will suck big time. No, I didn't do it, neither do I know anyone who has done it. But imagine a typical airport delay due to some operational reason, or weather related delay. Multiply that angst by 10x and that's probably what you get. Just like many others, I travelled frequently, but now it's not fear of any pathogen that gets me off but this whole non-sense quarantine process whatever they do now (because rules/process seem to change day by day) is just not me and I refuse to fly until this process is eased.

I've tried HK hospital A&E before, I've done flights going tech and I've had some #$%@ happen along the journey in the past, but this is a whole different league. Morale of the story, if you don't even need to come to HK, just don't and spend happy time back home.

12am is not from Europe

Is it a regional flight? Are there any alternative timings?

Frankly, accommodating family travel is not high on anyone's list of priorities right now. Perhaps put it off until they can get an early day arrival later in the year.

The quarantine and testing of incoming residents has evolved since it was started mid-March. The best solution in terms or infection risk for the local population is to quarantine everyone in dedicated centers, while sending positive cases to hospital. But these centers got quickly saturated. They are also used for contact cases of new positives in HK. At peak periods, the huge number of returnees from Europe and USA made it impossible. Some were released from the center after ten days and completed their remaining quarantine at home. But there has been many examples of people flouting the rules. In SIngapore, you get sent to jail or your residency revoked if you cheat, but HK is much more lenient. With the 100 thousands of returning students, quarantine at home was the only feasible solution.

There has been many reports of life in these dedicated centers (including from westerners who are contact cases). Frankly, conditions appeared quite adequate even if it is extremely unpleasant to be quarantined for 14 days. We now see HK families who had sent their kids home when situation looked bad in China/HK and return them now that the situation is bad in Europe and much safer in HK. Double national/PR make a personal choice and I find it surprising when they complain that food in those dedicated centers are not to their tastes.

My guess is that HK makes a decision on who to send to these scarce centers based on many parameters including the health risk of the origin country, the typical behavior of those nationals, their living conditions in HK, etc... We know that some countries do not have extensive testing capability and that the number of reported cases is highly unreliable.Nevertheless, reported cases have been rising rapidly in the past couple of weeks in countries like India and Pakistan. It would not be surprising if arrivals from these countries be sent to dedicated centers until they fill up (much fewer contact cases there).

I take it the Regal Oriental holding centre procedure only applies to arrivals by air, no matter from China or Taiwan (Cap 599C) or rest of world (Cap 599E) https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/...0042000699.htm

But not to arrivals by road (Shenzhen Bay crossing)?

Road arrivals just go home right?
Do they even get bracelet?

Yes, they can go home.. but they are also issued quarantine bracelet.. Travelers who have been to hubei province will be required to submit sputum sample for testing as well...

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...a1&oe=5ED8650D

This is not CX-related. Moving to HKG forum.

cxfan1960
CX CoMod