(Bloomberg) — Hong Kong residents returning from the U.S. will be required to spend their first seven days of quarantine in a government camp, the South China Morning Post reported, citing unidentified people.
An announcement on the change is expected as soon as Friday evening, the Post added.
The city’s health authorities are poised to elevate the U.S. to the highest Covid-19 risk level after a confirmed omicron case from the U.S. was found in Hong Kong on Friday, the report said. Locales already in so-called Group A with enhanced surveillance include roughly a dozen African nations.
Hone Kong has moved more than 30 countries into its high-risk category the past two weeks due to omicron, a Covid-19 variant first reported in South Africa on Nov. 24. Only Hong Kong residents are allowed to travel from the high-risk places, with visitors banned, and all such arrivals must undergo three weeks of quarantine in a venue from a government-designated list.
The moves underscore a knee-jerk approach that’s coming under growing criticism, with the intensifying stringency out of sync with the global trend. It signals the eagerness of the local government to align itself with China’s strict Covid-zero policies in hopes of reopening the mainland border, the city’s main economic lifeline.
Hong Kong’s 21-day quarantine policy is even more aggressive than what’s practiced in some areas in China; researchers associated with the Guangdong Provincial Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention said in a study on Covid data prior to omicron that isolation mandates longer than 14 days are likely “an over-reaction” to the threat.
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