Businesses call for HK quarantine exemptions

Executive councillor and Business and Professionals Alliance lawmaker Jeffrey Lam said today that he would push for more exemptions if the government decides to extend quarantine rules for people arriving from the mainland, RTHK reports.
The 14-day quarantine requirement regarding people coming into the city from the mainland, where there coronavirus pandemic began, is set to end on May 7.
Lam said if this measure remains in place after that date, business travelers and those who work on one side of the border but live on the other should be exempted.
He said exceptions could be made for such people, as long as they can provide a health certificate and test negative for the coronavirus.
But Civic Party lawmaker and doctor Kwok Ka-ki warned that loosening border controls would attract tens of thousands of visitors from the mainland and the consequences could be disastrous.
He said he is worried Beijing will pressure Hong Kong into dropping the restrictions, even though the mainland is still finding asymptomatic virus carriers.
"They have these so-called 'invisible carriers', one per 1,000 [inhabitants]. And also they consistently found cases without symptoms throughout April … so we cannot ease any travel restrictions," Kwok said.
The chairman of the Medical Association's advisory committee on communicable diseases, Dr Leung Chi-chiu, said whenever the border controls are loosened, it should be done in a phased manner.
He said different mainland provinces pose different levels of risk, for example Hubei, Guangdong and Heilongjiang are still reporting asymptomatic cases.
Leung said the authorities should first monitor whether the coronavirus situation on the mainland continues to improve after the May Day holiday period.