Quotas for Penny's Bay quarantine center snapped up in five minutes

All quotas have been snapped up within five minutes after Penny's Bay Quarantine Centre reopened bookings for foreign domestic helpers this morning.

The quarantine center opened bookings for the week between October 22 to 28 this morning, providing 350 quotas for foreign domestic workers' quarantine.

Cheung Kit-man, chairman of the Hong Kong Employment Agencies Association, said the 25 staffers at his company only managed to book two rooms.

Rooms available for reservation will be displayed on the booking system at 9am every Monday. For example, rooms from October 29 to November 4 will be available for reservation on October 11.

The center will provide an additional 200 units to the workers starting October 22, taking the total number of quarantine units designated for foreign domestic workers to 1,000 units.

Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong said the government will not further increase the quota of 50 daily arrivals in the quarantine center, as there is high rate of infection among foreign domestic helpers arriving in the city.

He said in his blog on Sunday that 26 out of 606 Filipino domestic helpers have been confirmed with Covid-19 from August 30 to September 24 – which is an infection rate of about 4.3 percent.