Hong Kong plans to cut hotel quarantine for arrivals with the introduction of a two-color health code system, local media reported on Monday.

The government is considering moving to five days of hotel quarantine, after which arrivals will be issued with a so-called yellow health code for two days that would prohibit them from entering high-risk areas where masks can be removed. Another option under consideration is four days of hotel isolation followed by three days of yellow code restrictions, according to Sing Tao, which cited a person it didn’t identify. Hong Kong currently requires seven-day quarantine for arrivals.

Separately, the South China Morning Post said authorities could even shorten the hotel quarantine to three days as they put the finishing touches to the China-style health code.

Officials are pushing to make Hong Kong’s vaccine pass system tied to the Leave Home Safe app more effective by identifying infected people with a red code and giving arrivals in quarantine a yellow code, the Post reported, citing people it didn’t identify.

The government is expected to make a decision in the next one to two weeks, the Chinese-language Sing Tao said.

The report hotel quarantine may be shortened helped send shares of Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. up as much as 1.3% in Monday trading, bucking losses in the benchmark Hang Seng index. 

Hong Kong endured some of the harshest border policies during the pandemic, at one time requiring as long as 21 days hotel quarantine, effectively cutting the city off from the rest of the world. The airline carried a total of 150,077 passengers last month, an increase of about 270% compared to June 2021, but still around 95% down on pre-pandemic levels in June 2019.

Separately, Hong Kong will require travelers to the city to fill out an electronic health declaration form before boarding a flight, no longer allowing them to do the paperwork after landing, in an effort to make the process more efficient, the government said in a statement Sunday. The new system will begin July 28 on a trial basis.

In addition to standard health and arrival details, passengers must provide proof of vaccination and a reference number for a quarantine hotel stay in order to get the QR code needed to board a flight into the Asian financial hub, the government said.

Hong Kong on Sunday reported 4,250 total new Covid-19 infections, including 186 imported cases.

Source:
courtesy of BLOOMBERG

by Dominic Lau

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