HK Considers Scrapping Hotel Quarantine: Health Chief

Health secretary Lo Chung-mau on Saturday said the government is actively considering scrapping the hotel quarantine rule, though he was tight-lipped as to when it might happen.

Currently, travellers are required to spend three nights in a designated hotel and then monitor their health for the next four days.

Lo said since the so-called "three plus four" model was introduced in August, they have not found a single inbound traveller holding an "amber" code entering restaurants.

He described the data collected as positive.

The health chief said it is the government's strategy to resume Hong Kong's international connection as soon as possible.

But he said the city's Covid policies are not based solely on the fatality rate, which some have argued has dropped to 0.1 percent since May, pointing out that there are still hundreds of Covid patients being admitted to public hospitals every day.

"The total deaths of Covid in 2022 have exceeded 9,000. We can't just look at the past few months," Lo told reporters after appearing on a radio show.

"We have to understand before Covid, Hong Kong's already facing extreme pressure on the healthcare system and our waiting time is pretty long. And at the same time, the recent wastage of our healthcare professionals, the staff attrition rate is on the high side. These are things that we have to consider. It's not just the snapshot fatality rate in the last few months that we consider."

Separately, the transport secretary Lam Sai-hung expressed the hope that Hong Kong can be opened up by the end of the year.