Govt Urged To Aid Employers Over Maid Quarantine

New People's Party lawmaker Eunice Yung has urged the government to use hotels to quarantine foreign domestic helpers when they arrive in Hong Kong over the next few months and subsidise their employers to pay for it.

According to the New People's Party lawmaker, more than 12,000 foreign domestic helpers are expected to arrive in the city, but many employers are worried that they cannot properly quarantine their helpers within their small homes.

"If the employers wish to ask for the quarantine arrangement, they have to pay around HK$6,000 for the hotel fees, so I think the government should step in and give subsidies to the employers," Yung said.

She also said the government should help cover part of the costs for Covid-19 tests for helpers, saying that there have been complaints about the cost, which ranges from HK$800 to HK$3,000.

In February, the Philippine government imposed a temporary travel restriction on Hong Kong, Macau and the mainland in response to the coronavirus outbreak, prohibiting Filipinos from travelling to or transiting via those areas.

The government has since eased that travel restriction.