On 6/3/2022 4:27 pm, David P. wrote:
Hong Kong’s Covid-19 Regime Sparks Rush for Exit by Spooked Residents
By Frances Yoon and Dan Strumpf, Feb. 27, 2022
Hong Kong’s heavy-handed response risks turning what has
been a stream of residents leaving the city into a flood.
Immigration data shows nearly 69,000 more Hong Kong residents
have left the city than arrived this year, with almost 80% of
those leaving in February, marking the biggest monthly drain
since January 2020, when the data began. It isn’t clear how
many have gone for good. The latest government figures
available show the city’s population shrank by over 75,000
in mid-2021 from a year earlier.
The scurry for the exit is visible in hastily canceled doctors'
appointments, children taking online classes while on the airport
shuttle and a rush to find tenants to take over apartment leases.
Ticket prices have soared for the few flights out of the city,
with some travel agents saying that clients are more willing to
consider any plane that gets them out of Hong Kong before the
new measures are implemented.
The city’s residents contend with a pandemic-control arsenal
with few parallels in the West. Most nonresidents are barred
from entering, and returning travelers must pay for weekslong
hotel quarantines no matter their test results or vaccination
status. While other economies are ditching restrictions, Hong
Kong has banned gatherings of more than two people and indoor
dining after 6 p.m., and shut gyms, bars, hair salons and even
campsites. Starting last Thursday, the unvaccinated can no
longer shop in supermarkets and malls.
Despite these measures, the city has recorded over 126,000
cases since Dec. 31 through Saturday, about 10 times the
number of infections seen in 2020 and 2021 combined.
Under pressure from Beijing to end the outbreak, Hong Kong
leader Carrie Lam announced plans to test all the city’s
residents three times in March, adopting a tactic that has
proved effective on the mainland in identifying every carrier
of the virus in a given area and putting them in isolation or
hospitals.
The government said it needs the school campuses to process
the one million tests a day required to achieve that goal.
Still, the unexpected decision brings forward the summer
holiday, wrecking the travel plans of families and creating
uncertainty over university-entrance exams for final-year students.
City authorities will also commandeer hotels and empty apartment
blocks and build isolation centers to house the tens of thousands
of people who are expected to test positive in the mass screening
campaign.
In a stark warning of what that might mean for families, an
11-month-old baby who tested positive was separated from her
parents at one of the city’s public hospitals. The Health
Authority said it wasn’t possible for the parents to remain
with their daughter because both of them had tested negative.
While the infant is now reunited with her parents, the incident
rattled many parents who fear a similar outcome from the mass
screening.
Doris Chiu, who runs a travel agency, said the risks of being
forced into isolation pushed her to accelerate plans to move
with her 4-year-old daughter to Washington, D.C.
“I want to avoid the citywide compulsory testing,” she said.
The Hong Kong native said she had lost faith in the government’s
ability to manage the pandemic. “It’s going to be a mess,” she
said. “It’s going to kill the economy further because they’ve
pretty much [brought] everything to a standstill.”
Businesses have long complained about the government’s handling
of the pandemic, saying travel and other restrictions had made
it hard to recruit and retain employees. Industry experts say
the latest shift in pandemic policy will likely make matters
worse, accelerating a trend that has seen the number of regional
headquarters of multinationals in Hong Kong drop by 5% since
2018—a figure reduced by the arrival of more mainland Chinese
companies.
Yossi Shabat, 62 years old, plans to relocate to Manila after
over 3 decades in Hong Kong, motivated by the Philippines’
dropping its quarantine requirement earlier this year. “I can't
manage my company business here in Southeast Asia from home
using MS Teams or Zoom. The relationship with the customer is
impacted,” said Mr. Shabat, who works for an Israeli-American
IT company.
“Hong Kong was known to be an excellent hub,” he said. “You could
fly from here to everywhere freely. The last two years, it doesn’t
happen anymore. It’s easier to take off to different places of the
world, from either Singapore or Manila or Bangkok.”
To be sure, the end of Hong Kong as a global financial and
commercial hub has been predicted many times before.
Joe Chu, Hong Kong manager of movers Vanpac GroupAsia, said
that while inquiries about relocations from expats in Hong Kong
are running at about double the usual level, he has seen big
outflows of both Hong Kongers and foreign residents several
times, notably during the SARS epidemic in 2003 and before
the 1997 handover of the former British colony to China.
He has also seen people return.
“On past experience, people leave, and after a few years
they come back,” he said.
Like many of those The Wall Street Journal spoke to, including
Mr. Shabat and Mr. Murton, Kevin Shee said his decision to leave
Hong Kong could change if the government relaxes its policies.
Mr. Shee, who runs a storage business, said he is taking his
family to Singapore and Bali in March and will make a final
decision on whethehorr to abandon Hong Kong further down the line.
“If the situation doesn’t improve by next year, and the
quarantine rules are still rigid, I won’t return to Hong Kong
anymore and live in Singapore,” he said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hong-kongs-covid-19-regime-sparks-rush-for-exit-by-spooked-residents-11645963200
The writer has fabricated a story of a Mr Shee going to Singapore and
Bali next month March for holiday when the flights to and fro Hong Kong
had already ceased by HK government in order to contain the spread of
Omicrons as well as Covid 19.
Therefore, this Shee guy will not be able to leave HK. Even so, if he
leaves if there is special flight for it, he may not able to fly to
those two countries because he and his family have not complete the
fully vaccination status of 3 doses.
Even if he had completed the 3 doses which included of booster shot, he
will still subject to rapid test called as Art test on the door step of entering these countries.If they failed the test, a further PCR test
will be carried out, and also his entry status is then cancelled if they
failed the tests.
If so, they have to extend their stay to get into quarantine station.
They will have to foot their own bills for their extension of stay in
hotel and food too. They will end up paying 4 weeks more weeks for a
week's holiday.
In these countries, in their 7 days moving average of infection in Sg is
about 16,000 to 24000 and in Indonesia, it is even worst, they do not
even dare to give the real number because there is no way to manage and
control infection.
Like other countries, these two countries were giving their own "real"
numbers. Any small problem is considered as Omicron and that required self-quarantine, too. This means literally thousands of people in these countries have been diagnosed and release them back to their home for
self monitoring for 7 days and hence there is no monitoring of cross transmission for them. Hence, the result is there is cross infection and
many old people had died. Therefore it is not worst it at all.
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