Relief on both sides of border over cut quarantine period

People going to Guangdong can enjoy a shorter quarantine period of seven days in hotels and three days of medical surveillance at home starting from yesterday.

Mainland health authorities on Tuesday announced the shortened hotel quarantine and home surveillance periods, formerly at 14 and seven days respectively.

Travelers who entered Guangdong earlier and were subject to the previous 14-day quarantine at centralized facilities should have been released yesterday if they had completed at least seven days.

The provincial government said all Guangdong cities should "implement quarantine arrangements for inbound travelers and close contacts as required and cannot force people to extend their quarantine periods."

Many who had already been quarantined for 10 days in Zhuhai and Shenzhen said they were told to leave.

A worker in a Zhuhai quarantine facility said the new arrangement was implemented yesterday.

But a Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Baoan district in Shenzhen said it was still under the old arrangement as the city's government had yet to issue an official document about the changes.

"The implementation of the new seven-plus-three arrangement needs to be decided by the officials and we do not have the details of the implementation yet," a staff from the Shenzhen government's hotline said.

Meanwhile, Allen Shi Lop-tak, president of the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong, said the number of people - particularly businessmen - going to the mainland will increase significantly.

"The quarantine period was cut by half, which could help us travel to the mainland to handle business. The previous three-week quarantine period was too long and we did not go to the mainland unless there were urgent needs," he said on radio yesterday.

Shi called on mainland authorities to increase the quota at the centralized quarantine facility in Shenzhen as the current 800 will not meet Hong Kong demands.

He hopes mainland authorities can provide more quarantine hotel rooms and increase the quota for the quarantine-free "Return2HK" scheme.

Sources earlier said the Hong Kong government is considering reducing its seven-day isolation period for inbound travelers to five days of hotel quarantine and two days at home. Such an arrangement, Shi said, could attract investors to return to Hong Kong.

He added that the government could further relax the quarantine measures to three days if there is no significant rebound in infections.

"Many are able to be quarantined in their own rooms at home [just like] during the fifth wave, which could help ease the shortage in hotel rooms," Shi said.

Microbiologist Ho Pak-leung said the hotel quarantine period should be shortened to three days followed by four days of medical surveillance at home.

Ho said people under medical surveillance should be barred from restaurants, bars, beauty salons and fitness centers, but should be allowed to go to their place of work taking "point-to-point" transportation.

wallis.wang@singtaonewscorp.com