22k quarantine rooms open to all, including FDHs, says health chief

By The SUN 

Health Secretary Sophia Chan says quarantine hotel rooms for foreign domestic helpers arriving from overseas has increased substantially from the 6,000 listed at the end of March.

Addressing a written inquiry from legislators on Wednesday, Chan said that since March 1, FDHs have been allowed to check into any designated quarantine hotel after arriving in Hong Kong. That means they can vie for any of the 22,000 rooms that have been made available for all people arriving from overseas.

Previously, FDHs were allowed to stay only in three or four hotels designated solely for their use, which severely restricted the number of those coming in to take up jobs in the city.

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Chan said authorities will closely monitor the supply and demand for quarantine rooms and will make adjustments when necessary.

She also said the demand for rooms has risen over the past month.

“According to the room-booking statistics provided by the hotels, as of May 23, the overall booking rate of the [quarantine hotel rooms] for May and June is around 65 percent and 70 percent respectively,” Chan said in her written reply.

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She also noted that over half of the 22,000 quarantine hotel rooms were provided at a standard rate of no more than $800 a night.

She made her remarks one day after outgoing Chief Executive Carrie Lam ruled out any further relaxation of cross-border restrictions until she steps down at the end of next month.

CE Lam says hotel quarantine will stay until she steps down on Jun 30

“About border controls, as you can see from the numbers we announce every day at the 4.30pm press conference, because the local infections are kept very low now, the imported cases account for a rather significant share of the total caseload. And on top of that, we are seeing different variants under BA.2, so we have to be extremely careful in, sort of, implementing the restrictions on border controls,” the CE said.

“I would say at this point in time that it is very unlikely that, during my term, there will be more relaxations on border controls. In other words, we will still have hotel quarantine; we will still require vaccination before a passenger could board a plane to Hong Kong; and we will still impose "test-and-hold", whether at the airport or at the hotel, for a PCR test (polymerase chain reaction nucleic acid test) in order to keep Hong Kong safe.”

 

Meanwhile, Chan said the Penny's Bay community isolation facility and one community isolation hotel are being used to accommodate persons that have to be isolated because they need looking after, or due to their household environments.  

The remaining community isolation facilities 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 on standby for the time being, she said.

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“As the epidemic has not yet come to an end, the government still needs to reserve these community isolation facilities so as to ensure that Hong Kong can cope with a possible sixth wave of the epidemic if it arrives,” Chan added.