The Hong Kong government added two more hotels to its list of Designated Quarantine Hotels (DQHs) where inbound travellers must serve their compulsory isolation period as part of the city’s anti-pandemic measures.
Starting at the end of this month, Hong Kong Ocean Park Marriott Hotel and Conrad Hong Kong will accept bookings for early June. These hotels will be added to the list of 7th cycle of DQHs and will accept bookings until July 31, 2022. They will provide approximately 600 more rooms for international arrivals.
These latest additions to the DQH list come after the authorities relaxed measures for Hong Kong-bound travellers from May 1. Non-residents can now enter the city as long as they are vaccinated, have a reservation at a DQH for a minimum of seven days, undergo a PCR and rapid antigen test (RAT) at the airport, and get tested every day for the virus during their mandatory quarantine period.
This development comes after Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said that it is unlikely that border control measures will be relaxed during her term in office, which ends on June 30, 2022. She specified that it will continue to be mandatory for inbound passengers to serve a hotel quarantine period, undergo PCR and rapid antigen testing at the airport and hotels, and be vaccinated so they can enter the SAR.
Earlier this month, six more quarantine hotels were added to the DQH list in anticipation of more passengers arriving into Hong Kong on account of the restrictions on overseas travellers being lifted. In addition, nine hotels previously used as Community Isolation Facilities (CIFs) to accommodate patients who contracted the virus in Hong Kong were also converted to DQHs.
During the LegGo meeting on Tuesday, Secretary for Food and Health, Professor Sophia Chan, said that the government is currently only using Penny’s Bay and one CIF hotel to house international arrivals who test positive for Covid-19 and asymptomatic patients who contract the virus in the city but who cannot recover at home.
“The Government is focusing on utilising the Penny’s Bay CIF and one CIF Hotel. The remaining CIFs at Tsing Yi, San Tin, Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities Island of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, Fanling, Hung Shui Kiu and Yuen Long have been put into standby mode. As the epidemic has not yet come to an end, the Government still needs to reserve these CIFs so as to ensure that Hong Kong can cope with a possible sixth wave of epidemic if it arrives,” said Professor Chan.
Header image credits: OPmarri Bofliaerm via Wiki Commons
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