Delayed Flight Leads To First New Quarantine Orders

Passengers of a delayed flight from Australia became the first people to go into compulsory quarantine after Hong Kong started implementing tougher measures for arrivals from almost the entire world to curb the expanding outbreak of the coronavirus.

This comes as health officials said that the number of confirmed cases registered a sharp jump this week, with the majority of the new victims coming from abroad.

A flight scheduled to arrive from Melbourne at around 9pm on Wednesday night was delayed until about 3:30am Thursday, and the passengers became the first group to undergo compulsory quarantine under new rules affecting arrivals which came into effect at midnight.

One of the passengers, surnamed Wong, said that he had caught the flight thinking he could beat the Thursday deadline and had hoped to be in Hong Kong before the new measures came into effect. But the flight delay dashed his hopes.

Another passenger on the same flight, who gave his name as Law, said he felt helpless as he waited for the plane before take-off. He said he was in a bad mood.

The majority of people who arrived in Hong Kong after the new measures went up said completing the health declaration form, getting a monitoring wristband, and the immigration process all went smoothly and took about 15 minutes in total.

By morning, flights from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, and Myanmar had landed in Hong Kong.

Most of the passengers wore masks and other protective gear throughout the flights, they said.

A student who returned from the United States, surnamed Leung, said she had a mask, a raincoat, and gloves on throughout the flight. She also did not eat or drink during the whole flight as she was worried about getting infected with Covid-19.

A Hong Kong University student surnamed Hui, who was doing an internship at a hospital in Yangon, Myanmar, said his course was ended abruptly due to the epidemic.

He said that although there were no confirmed cases in the local area, he was worried the authorities would announce a lockdown and so decided to rush back to Hong Kong.

A student in Paris surnamed Yu said home isolation is also being implemented by the French authorities. People had to fill out forms before going out, which was similar to a curfew, she said.

She said only Asians in Paris are wearing face masks. “So I decided to return to Hong Kong one and a half months early,” she said.

Yu said she had forked out HK$30,000 for her air ticket.

She said that as she had been in France for more than 15 days and there are elderly people at her home in Hong Kong, she will be staying at a hotel for 14 days.

Another university student studying in France, surnamed Chan, said after her school was shut, she immediately bought a ticket for Hong Kong, which cost more than HK$6,000. That was on Friday, but by Wednesday night the price had gone up to HK$19,000, she said.