Regal Hotel in Kowloon City vacated for those awaiting virus test results

The Regal Oriental Hotel in Kowloon City will serve as temporary accommodation for people arriving in Hong Kong who must wait overnight for Covid-19 test results.

This is the first time authorities have rented an entire hotel for public health purposes since the first Covid-19 infection in Hong Kong was recorded in late January.

The hotel has apparently been booked for three months for HK$10 million a month. And a customer service officer told The Standard the hotel will not be available for bookings until August.

Starting tomorrow, arrivals at Hong Kong International Airport in afternoons and evenings will be sent to AsiaWorld-Expo for deep throat saliva samples to be taken. Then transport laid on by the Department of Health will take them to the 500-room, four-star Regal Oriental for overnight stays as test results will only become available the next morning.

Morning arrivals at the airport will wait at AsiaWorld-Expo as test results will be available in the evening.

Department staff will also issue quarantine orders for people being sent to the hotel and distribute electronic bracelets to track their positions.

The quarantine order will ban them from leaving hotel rooms, and anyone who defies the rule face up to six months in prison and a HK$25,000 fine.

There will also be security at the hotel to ensure no one leaves the premises.

A government spokesman said all people staying at the hotel would be asymptomatic and their stays would not pose any risks to nearby residents.

The spokesman noted too that among new virus infections recorded over the past two weeks 80 percent involved imported cases.

So "the most crucial part in battling the pandemic" was to stop imported cases from spreading in the community.

If tests results are negative the people have to go home immediately for a 14-day mandatory quarantine.

Those diagnosed with the virus and their close contacts will be sent to hospitals and quarantine centers by ambulances or other official vehicles.

Cleaners from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department will also be disinfecting rooms.

People checked into the hotel were informed yesterday morning that they needed to move out by noon.

A man named Lee said Regal Oriental staff offered to move him to any other hotel in the group or to provide a refund.

He decided to head for another hotel in Kowloon City as he works nearby.

"It was short notice," he remarked, "though I didn't mind moving for public health purposes."

With all guests gone, police had by 4pm cordoned the premises off with huge water-filled plastic barriers.

Pentahotel Hong Kong in San Po Kong last week offered 300 rooms for medics for free to salute front-line professionals battling the pandemic in public hospitals.