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Coronavirus in China: travel restrictions should continue to avoid a resurgence, researchers say | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3166171/coronavirus-china-travel-restrictions-should-continue-avoid

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Coronavirus in China: travel restrictions should continue to avoid a resurgence, researchers say. A key to controlling the pandemic lies in the development and widespread use of vaccines that are more effective in preventing infection, says research paper China’s continuous pursuit of the zero-Covid policy has come under scrutiny for its high social and economic costs
Chinese researchers said allowing for the movement of people to Covid-zero regions like China would result in 234.2 million infections and 2 million deaths within a year. The key to controlling Covid-19 lies in the development and widespread use of vaccines that are more effective in preventing infection, according to a research paper published in China CDC Weekly, a bulletin of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
China has strictly enforced its “zero-Covid” policy with the use of tight border controls and lockdowns as it battles the highly infectious Omicron variant while hosting the Winter Olympics in Beijing.Across China, 45 new local Covid-19 cases were reported on Sunday, a rise from the low of nine cases last week during the Lunar New Year holiday.
Are Hong Kong’s Covid-19 defences starting to collapse?
Based on previous studies of vaccine effectiveness against infection in Britain and Chile, the researchers found that the baseline efficacy – indicated by efficacy against infection, against symptomatic disease and against death – was 30 per cent, 68.3 per cent and 86 per cent, respectively.Even if the vaccination rate reached 95 per cent, the paper said, allowing for transregional movement would result in 234.2 million infections and 2 million deaths within a year in unaffected regions.
“No matter how effective the vaccine was, it could not eliminate Covid-19 in Covid-zero regions, i.e., regions with strong national commitments to suppressing Covid-19 transmission such as China,” according to the report.
It said nations should continue to develop vaccines and explore new ways to improve vaccine protection against infection to eliminate Covid-19 at the global level.
The paper also said that a higher level of vaccine protection would be necessary if the goal was to restore population mobility to the pre-Covid level in 2019. To reduce the annual incidence of Covid-19 to that of influenza, the vaccine’s effectiveness against infection and symptomatic disease needs to be increased to no less than 40 per cent and 90 per cent, respectively.The paper said non-pharmaceutical interventions such as travel restrictions and lockdown should be continued to avoid a resurgence of Covid-19. “In any case, resuming international population mobility should be treated with caution to avoid domestic outbreaks,” it said.
Liang Wannian, the country’s top government adviser on the coronavirus, said in a recent interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television that it was imperative for China to continue its “dynamic zero-Covid” policy through timely and decisive interventions.However, Liang also said the policy could not be permanent, but its implementation should take into account factors such as changes in the epidemic.
Most countries have decided to “coexist” with the coronavirus to return to normal economic activity and daily living, while China’s continuous pursuit of the zero-Covid policy has come under increasing scrutiny for its high social and economic costs and sustainability.The spread of the Omicron variant will make China’s success in tackling Covid-19 “look more fleeting” and could undermine its efforts to present itself as a global health leader, wrote Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.

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Coronavirus: domestic helper shortage continues to plague Hong Kong as number of such workers hits new low | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3165291/coronavirus-domestic-helper-shortage-continues-plague-hong

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Coronavirus: domestic helper shortage continues to plague Hong Kong as number of such workers hits new low
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong says flight bans as a result of Omicron outbreak cancelled out efforts to make more quarantine facilities available. Number of domestic helpers in city has dropped to 339,451 by the end of December from about 400,000 in January 2020
The number of domestic helpers in Hong Kong has fallen to 339,451 by the end of December, according to labour chief Law Chi-kwong. Photo: Nora Tam. Hong Kong families struggling amid a shortage of domestic helpers have yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel, after the number of such workers in the past two years hit a new low of about 339,000, the city’s labour chief has said.Writing on his official blog, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong said authorities had made progress in finding more quarantine facilities for incoming domestic helpers, before the Omicron coronavirus variant began to affect Hong Kong and Southeast Asia last month.
“In mid-December, we made headway in increasing quarantine facilities for helpers … but such ‘dawning light’ soon vanished,” he said. “It was because the pandemic situation in the Philippines had rocketed … In early January, more than 40 per cent of 175 Filipino domestic helpers tested positive. It was very shocking.” Law said the number of domestic helpers had decreased in Hong Kong in the past two years, noting that there were about 400,000 of them in the city in January 2020. They mainly come from the Philippines or Indonesia. That figure dropped to 350,050 in November last year, and then to 339,451 by the end of December. It was the lowest figure since at least the end of 2016, when there were 351,513 helpers in Hong Kong. The Post has reached out to the government for pre-2016 statistics.
From September to November last year, the figure decreased month-on-month by about 1,300 to 1,900. But from November to December, the number fell by more than 10,000.
Law said he feared the figure indicated that many Filipino helpers could have been left stranded by the flight ban after returning home for the Christmas and New Year holidays, adding the government would closely monitor the situation in both the Philippines and Indonesia. “[In mid-January,] the average number of coronavirus infections in the Philippines peaked at about 35,000 per day. Now it has decreased by about a third, but we don’t know whether it … will reach a low level so that the flights can be resumed,” he said. The pandemic situation in Indonesia was also worsening, albeit at a slower pace than in the Philippines, he added. At the start of the pandemic, domestic helpers were allowed to be isolated for a fortnight in dozens of quarantine hotels for incoming travellers. Authorities later lengthened the quarantine period for all visitors to three weeks, and only designated a few hotels, as well as about 1,000 units in the government-run Penny’s Bay quarantine centre, for arriving helpers. Law said authorities had managed to find more quarantine hotels for incoming helpers in August last year, but the effect was cancelled out as the Penny’s Bay spaces were reserved for other purposes. “Even those domestic helpers who had yet to finish their quarantine had to be moved to the designated hotels,” he noted.
The Labour Department said on Thursday that apart from the three designated quarantine hotels for incoming helpers, two more facilities – O’Hotel and iclub Ma Tau Wai Hotel – would be made available.
The hotels will provide an additional 491 rooms, taking the total number of quarantine spaces for arriving helpers to 2,779. More quarantine hotel rooms needed for domestic workers: Hong Kong minister. Mike Cheung, president of the Hong Kong-based Overseas Employment Centre, said Law should consider allowing helpers to be quarantined in other hotels, not just the designated five. “This two-track policy was adopted due to uncertainty about anti-pandemic measures in the Philippines and Indonesia. Now that we can see the domestic helpers are not bringing the coronavirus to Hong Kong, employers should be allowed to book other quarantine hotels,” he argued. But Betty Yung Ma Shan-yee, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Employers of Overseas Domestic Helpers Association, said she was not so sure about relaxing the rules for helpers, especially when the government had recently shortened the quarantine period for all incoming travellers from three weeks to two.
Latest ban as city braces for a fifth wave of infections leads to frantic scramble among travellers to cancel and rebook flights, hotel rooms Industry figures warn domestic helper shortage will worsen, and if long wait continues, market may move elsewhere. Hong Kong’s two-week flight ban has dashed the hopes of those planning family reunions as well as disrupted plans for incoming domestic helpers, with the Philippines, Britain and the United States among eight countries hit with tightened rules aimed at containing a Covid-19 surge. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced on Wednesday the ban on passenger flights from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, and the United States for 14 days until January 21, starting from Saturday. Travellers who were recently in those countries or had transited through them will be barred from returning to the city for two weeks.Government pandemic advisers also warned earlier on Wednesday that a fifth wave of infections had started, calling on authorities to immediately tighten social-distancing rules to cut off up to 10 invisible transmission chains in the community.
A popular Facebook group for travellers to Hong Kong was flooded with messages following Lam’s announcement, as people scrambled to clarify the rules and rebook tickets. Some residents were looking to do a “wash out”, which means staying for 21 days in a country that has not been banned, before returning to Hong Kong. Some complained they had already changed their flights and hotel bookings numerous times, as airlines have cancelled or suspended routes to Hong Kong in recent weeks. Many speculated that the flight suspension of the eight countries would be extended beyond the current two weeks, pointing to previous examples last year. A 33-year-old investment banker, who asked to remain anonymous, had travelled to Britain on December 18 to visit his parents who live there, rather than asking them to come back to their hometown and face quarantine for 21 days. His wife and baby daughter had already flown out in August. The family had planned to fly back together in January, typically a busy time of the year for his industry. His flight was cancelled and rebooked for January 15, before the suspension was announced. He said while his US firm in Hong Kong was understanding, the situation was not ideal as he was now considering spending 21 days in a third country to return. “I do think things will only get worse and not better in Hong Kong. So my inclination is that the flight ban will be extended, which makes it very difficult, then what do I do?” he lamented. The banker said he knew “a lot” of people from the finance sector who had moved back to their home countries permanently or earlier than they had originally planned, with others considering leaving the city. Hong Kong has stood firm on its zero-Covid stance, aligned with mainland China. “They can’t handle the uncertainty. A lot of them just need to see their family,” he said.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#sante#travailleurmigrant#retour#quarantaine#vaccination

Omicron: Hong Kong to shorten its 21-day quarantine requirement for incoming travellers | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3164934/omicron-hong-kong-shorten-its-21-day-quarantine

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Omicron: Hong Kong to shorten its 21-day quarantine requirement for incoming travellers
Move comes after persistent complaints from travellers and companies paying high quarantine costs for employees. Hong Kong will shorten its 21-day quarantine requirement for incoming travellers given the much shorter incubation period of the Omicron variant, the Post has learned.A government source said Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was expected to make the announcement at 5.30pm on Thursday.The move came after persistent complaints from travellers and companies paying high quarantine costs for employees.Currently, Hong Kong residents returning from 147 countries or places deemed high-risk are subject to 21 days of quarantine at designated hotels. Those arriving from 15 countries must isolate at the Penny’s Bay quarantine facility for four days before completing the rest of their quarantine at a hotel. Unvaccinated residents returning from medium-risk countries are also subject to the same.The isolation periods for vaccinated travellers from medium- and low-risk countries are 14 and seven days respectively. But currently nowhere overseas is deemed low-risk by the Hong Kong government.Hong Kong may set new record for daily confirmed coronavirus infections
27 Jan 2022. Last June when the pandemic situation had stabilised, the quarantine period for high-risk countries was cut to 14 days for travellers who could produce a positive antibody test. Flights from eight major countries, including Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Britain and the United States have been banned since the start of the fifth wave of infections, to prevent more imported cases from slipping into the community. Earlier this month, Hong Kong cut the quarantine period of Covid-19 patients’ close contacts from the previous 21 days to 14, citing reasons of pressure on the city’s quarantine facilities and the shorter incubation period of people carrying the Omicron variant.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#sante#circulation#frontiere#omicronquarantaine#test#isolement#australie#canada#france#inde#pakistan#philippines#grandebretagne#etatsunis#casimporte

Shenzhen toughens quarantine rules for arrivals from Hong Kong, authorities lock down third building at Omicron-stricken Kwai Chung Estate | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3164610/hong-kong-lock-down-third-building-omicron

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Shenzhen toughens quarantine rules for arrivals from Hong Kong, authorities lock down third building at Omicron-stricken Kwai Chung Estate
Health authorities in Hong Kong expand lockdown at public housing estate, with five-day order issued for Ha Kwai House
uThe mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen will impose stricter quarantine rules from Wednesday on travellers from Hong Kong, where a growing Omicron outbreak has prompted authorities to place a third block at a stricken public housing estate under lockdown.Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Tuesday pleaded for understanding from the 35,000 residents at Kwai Chung Estate in Kwai Tsing district, saying decisive action was needed to halt the outbreak, which had grown to 276 confirmed and preliminary-positive cases now spread across 12 of the 16 blocks.
As part of that effort, health authorities not only locked down a third block for five days of testing but also extended restrictions placed upon another tower by two more days, meaning residents will only be allowed to leave on Friday after having spent a full week confined almost entirely to their flats.
In announcing the change in the quarantine arrangements for Shenzhen, the city’s government said travellers arriving from Hong Kong would be required to spend 14 days isolated at designated facilities and another seven days at home for health observation, in addition to testing negative for Covid-19 within 24 hours of crossing the border.Previously, they would only need seven days of quarantine at designated facilities, seven days of home quarantine and seven days of health observation, in addition to the same testing requirement. Hong Kong recorded 124 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, the third day in a row in which the tally exceeded 100. Health authorities said 94 of the latest cases were local, while the remaining 30 were imported, including 21 crew members of a ship that arrived from India.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#hongkong#sante#frontiere#circulation#quarantaine#isolement#test#omicron

Nine staff infected with Covid-19 evacuated from Argentina’s Antarctic research base | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3164203/nine-staff-infected-covid-19-evacuated-argentinas-antarctic

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Nine staff infected with Covid-19 evacuated from Argentina’s Antarctic research base
For the first time since the start of the pandemic the coronavirus has reached an Argentine research base in Antarctica, causing the evacuation of nine unvaccinated staff who tested positive for Covid-19, an official said on Thursday.Twenty-four of the 43 scientists and military personnel at Argentina’s La Esperanza base have been infected, Patricia Ortuzar of the government’s National Directorate of the Antarctic said.Nine of the 24, who have no symptoms, were evacuated to Buenos Aires by helicopter as a precaution.They had been in Antarctica since before the start of Argentina’s vaccination campaign in 2021, and were due to travel to the capital to be jabbe.
They had decided to wait to get their shots in Argentina, fearing having to deal with possible side effects in the extreme environment that is Antarctica.Previously, Covid-19 cases were reported at a Belgian research station in the icy continent in December 2021.The situation at La Esperanza base was “under control”, said Ortuzar.The other 15 coronavirus-positive staff, also asymptomatic, remained at the base with the rest of the team. All are vaccinated.The La Esperanza base, built in 1952 in the extreme northwest of Antarctica, is one of 13 belonging to Argentina – six of them permanent.In the winter months, Argentina has some 200 scientists, military personnel and assistants at its permanent bases, a number that roughly doubles in summer.The outbreak at La Esperanza started on January 12, when a base occupant was likely infected by a new arrival, said Ortuzar.To prevent infection at its Antarctic outposts, Argentina has isolated and tested some 300 scientists and military personnel since December aboard an icebreaker which is currently bringing them back to Antarctica.Like many other countries, Argentina is battling a third pandemic wave, with more than 100,000 cases reported daily.The South American country of 45 million people has registered more than 7.4 million infections since March 2020, and 118,000 deaths.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#argentine#antartique#sante#immigration#virus#pandemie#militaire#scientifique#vaccination

Covid-19 in China: Shenzhen, Beijing and Tianjin in Omicron containment race ahead of Lunar New Year and Winter Olympics | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3163571/covid-19-china-beijing-and-tianjin-racing-contain-omicron

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Covid-19 in China: Shenzhen, Beijing and Tianjin in Omicron containment race ahead of Lunar New Year and Winter Olympics. The Chinese capital has recorded its first Omicron case, while the neighbouring city has recorded more positives
The southern Chinese city of Shenzhen reported its first locally transmitted case of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 on Sunday, joining Tianjin and Beijing in battling to bring the strain under control before the Lunar New Year holiday and Winter Olympics. Shenzhen reported two new community cases on Sunday, bringing the city’s total to 17 in this outbreak. The city reported no cases for Saturday.State media reported that a woman from Longgang district handling frozen overseas chemical reagents was confirmed with the Omicron variant. The other case is a Delta infection.
Across China, 119 cases were reported as of midnight Saturday, of which 65 were locally transmitted, the National Health Commission said on Sunday. Among these cases, 33 were in Tianjin, 29 in Henan province, one in Beijing, one in Guangdong and one in Shaanxi’s provincial capital Xian.
On Saturday, Beijing reported its first case of Omicron, a woman from Haidian district who reported having a sore throat and fever in the past few days.The woman had not left the city in the previous two weeks and had not been in contact with confirmed cases. Two people living with her tested negative but some environmental samples in her home were positive.
The local health authorities have tracked her movements over the past two weeks and alerted close contacts. People who have visited the same public places as her were told to get tested. Covid outbreaks loom over world’s biggest human migration as China braces for Lunar New Year rush
Chen also said she has given up any hope of travelling home to the eastern province of Anhui, some 1,000km (600 miles) from the capital, for the holidays, especially with the Winter Olympics opening in a few weeks.
A series of preventive measures have been put in place for the Games, which will be held inside an isolation bubble. On Saturday, Xu Hejian, a spokesman for the Beijing municipal government, said that all departments had to ensure the safety of the capital and the Olympics.Meanwhile, Vice-Premier Liu He warned of growing uncertainty surrounding the capital’s pandemic controls during the holidays and Winter Games, and called on officials to strengthen their contingency plans.Tianjin, a major port city to the east of the capital, is still battling to contain its outbreak but the NHC said the risk of it spreading to other cities was falling. Tianjin’s most recent cases have been detected in locked down parts of the city.
On Saturday, Shenzhen reported zero new local cases, raising hopes that the outbreak will be over by Lunar New Year on February 1. But the newly reported cases on Sunday are expected to cast shadow over those holiday plans.The nearby cities of Zhuhai and Zhongshan are continuing mass screening and have imposed travel restrictions since Omicron was detected in both cities last month. The authorities in Macau have also tightened their border controls in response.The National Development and Reform Commission said on Sunday that local governments should refrain from “simplified” and “one-size-fits-all” Covid-control measures during the upcoming holiday to minimise the impact on people’s lives.The state planner urged governments to allow people in low-risk areas to make short trips and encourage measures to boost consumer spending.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#sante#jeuxolympiques#deplacementinterne#omicron#delta#economie#zerocovid#confinement#tracking#frontiere#controle

Sick with Covid-19, Hong Kong students in UK learn that ‘living with the virus’ means nobody cares, rules don’t matter | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3163537/sick-covid-19-hong-kong-students-uk-learn-living

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Sick with Covid-19, Hong Kong students in UK learn that ‘living with the virus’ means nobody cares, rules don’t matter
Hong Kong student Kok Suen-tung was in a holiday state of mind when she felt unwell, tested herself and found out she had Covid-19 last month.
The final-year social policy student at the University of Bristol cancelled plans to visit friends in London and spent 10 days alone in her flat in the southwestern English city.Although the National Health Service (NHS) had a Volunteer Responders scheme with helpers to check in on isolated individuals and pick up groceries for those in need, Kok gave up trying to get through after multiple attempts.She received messages from the NHS every couple of days reminding her to avoid going out and meeting people, but it was practically impossible to avoid physical contact with others, as delivery drivers refused to leave her food at the door as requested.“They were probably concerned that the food would be stolen, so they made sure to hand it to me directly, even after I’d told them I had the virus,” she said.
Three Hong Kong students interviewed by the Post said they were shocked by the absence of contact tracing, the loose enforcement of isolation rules and how those who tested positive for the coronavirus were left on their own to stay home, without checks or medicine from the health authorities.
The UK broke its single-day record earlier this month with more than 200,000 cases and recorded nearly 100,000 infections on Friday, but its strategy of “living with the virus” seeks to avoid curbs on social activities, although masks and vaccination records are required in some venues. According to the NHS, a person with Covid-19 must self-isolate at home for 10 days, starting from the day symptoms first emerged or they tested positive. The isolation period can be cut to seven days if they test negative on days six and seven.Current rules also require those in contact with a Covid-19 patient to self-isolate for 10 days, but those fully vaccinated or unable to be vaccinated for medical reasons are exempted.In many ways, the UK approach to dealing with the pandemic is the polar opposite of Hong Kong’s strict zero-Covid strategy.When he had cold symptoms last November, Wong went to a walk-in test centre near where he lived. He found that he had Covid-19 and had to self-isolate.“I had support from my friends, but support from the government was virtually non-existent – it was like they’d given up,” he said.At his private accommodation in Durham, the staff did not wear masks and residents were left in the dark about Covid-19 cases in the building.The students said they wished the UK did more for those who fell ill.
Marco Sik Fong-ching, 23, an occupational therapy student at the University of Liverpool, found out he had Covid-19 last October and remained in his flat for 10 days.“It would’ve helped emotionally to know how and where I caught the virus – it would also be helpful to all in terms of curbing the spread,” he said. “The UK’s self-isolation policy is quite meaningless, as people with Covid-19 do leave home to get food.”NHS staff gave him no medication and advised him to take painkillers if he felt unwell.
Theresa Awolesi, 28, a medical student from London working at a hospital in Bristol, said: “The NHS has been underfunded for years, and staffing is a key issue. Not only is the turnover rate high, many of the staff are ill with Covid.”An average of around 45,000 health care staff were absent daily in the first week of 2022 for Covid-related reasons, according to official data.
Hong Kong migrants to UK struggle to adapt, many willing to accept lower pay and job changes“The government seems to think we are just going to push through and somehow come out on the other side,” she added.
Professor David Hui Shu-cheong of Chinese University, a member of the Hong Kong government’s pandemic advisory panel, said the situation in the UK reflected its decision to live with the virus.“Cases are only traced under a zero-Covid strategy, to identify and quarantine the patients’ close contacts. But when a place has decided to live with the virus, they won’t do that,” he said.Little was likely to change even with a surge of infections.“There’s nothing the patient can do, except to inform hospitals when they experience a shortness of breath, which could mean they have pneumonia,” he said.The three Hong Kong students who fell ill told the Post they recovered and were looking forward to returning home over the summer.
In Bristol, Kok said: “The virus is practically unavoidable here. The community has put in minimal effort to curb another outbreak, because it has been normalised – I don’t think they care.“I can go outside now and I will not see a single person wearing a mask.”

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#grandebretagne#hongkong#sante#etudiant#zercocovid#NHS#tracking#cascontact#quarantaine#vivreavecvirus

Coronavirus: Hong Kong extends stricter social-distancing measures, flight bans on 8 countries through Lunar New Year, will provide HK$3.57 billion in subsidies to hard-hit businesses | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3163344/hong-kong-social-distancing-ban-evening-dine

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Coronavirus: Hong Kong extends stricter social-distancing measures, flight bans on 8 countries through Lunar New Year, will provide HK$3.57 billion in subsidies to hard-hit businesses.Hong Kong’s ban on evening dine-in services will be extended for two more weeks, through the Lunar New Year holiday, while industries hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic will be offered HK$3.57 billion in subsidies.Confirming an earlier Post report, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor also announced on Friday a flight ban currently imposed on Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Britain and the United States would also be extended until February 4. The ban was first introduced on January 8.
With the measures in place, Lam was still hopeful the long-awaited reopening of the border with mainland China was on the cards after the outbreak of the highly transmissive Omicron variant had stalled the plan.
“The latest assessment is Covid-19 is not yet under control, there’s still a risk of a large-scale outbreak,” Lam told a press briefing on Friday evening. “If there is no major outbreak on February 4, we will restore business operations but they will be subject to vaccination requirements.”She said applications for the subsidies would open as soon as next week with the fifth round of pandemic relief focusing on two main groups.The first is businesses directly affected by the latest curbs such as restaurants, which cannot offer night-time dine-in services, and the beauty industry as well as hard-hit individuals such as gym instructors and freelance artists.
The second group is industries that have remained “frozen” during the pandemic, such as the tourism sector and cross-border transport industry.
Lam said that as the curbs would be in place for four weeks compared with up to 158 days for some industries during the fourth wave, the subsidy amount for businesses this time would be half of that during the previous round of relief. And for individuals, it would be two-thirds of that amount.
The latest offerings add to the government’s subsidies of HK$162.3 billion via an anti-epidemic fund directly benefiting more than 20 industries in 2020 and 2021.The extension will put a damper on Hongkongers’ traditional festive dinners out, requiring them to instead celebrate at home until at least the fourth day of Lunar New Year – one day after the public holiday ends. Large-scale events, such as the Lunar New Year Fair, will also be affected. Stricter social-distancing measures, initially meant to last two weeks, were reimposed on January 5 in the wake of the emergence of an ongoing fifth wave of coronavirus infections.

#Covid-19#migration#migrant#hongkong#sante#circulation#frontiere#zerocovid#tourisme#business#restrictionsanitaire#economietransfrontaliere

Virtual foreign exchange allowing students to ‘study abroad’ without leaving home will outlast Covid-19 | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3162918/virtual-foreign-exchange-allowing-students-study-abroad-without

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Virtual foreign exchange allowing students to ‘study abroad’ without leaving home will outlast Covid-19. Virtual technology has not only allowed study abroad experiences to continue during the pandemic, but made them more accessible to less privileged students With international travel likely to remain a luxury in a post-pandemic world, online student exchanges offer an affordable alternative
Knowledge has no boundaries. This is especially true in a global society, with more and more students crossing borders to access overseas education. Going abroad to study or on exchange has become a rite of passage for millions of young people around the world.According to an OECD report published in 2020, the number of tertiary students pursuing education in a foreign country reached 5.6 million in 2018, more than doubling over the last 20 years. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development also projected that the international student population is likely to reach 8 million by 2025.This phenomenal growth is attributed to the rise of the middle class in developing economies as well as a shortage of high-quality institutions in much of the developing world. The relative affordability and accessibility of international air travel, as well as the rapid development of communication technology, means students can be increasingly mobile while remaining connected to friends and family in their home countries.But the emergence of Covid-19 changed all this. As with so many areas of our lives, the pandemic has massively disrupted the traditional approach to international education; it threatened to erase decades of progress as the world retreated into quarantine almost two years ago.
Travel restrictions, border closures, public health measures and pandemic politics have led to a significant decline in international student enrolment levels in most leading host countries.Short-term exchange programmes, which are the backbone of the internationalisation agenda for so many universities, have seen a particularly sharp drop. Short-term overseas experiences are critical for fostering people-to-people links across nations, and provide students with the cultural smarts to forge global careers. Their absence is a potential tragedy for globalisation.Demand for full-degree programmes in top host countries has declined by as much as 20 per cent, but short-term programmes have fallen even further, with demand in many cases evaporating altogether. As universities and analysts think about recovery, it is forecast to take at least five years for international student mobility to return to pre-pandemic levels.
Far from passively waiting for borders to reopen, universities have been reimagining their approach to student mobility and harnessing the power of technology to deliver immersive international student experiences.This is much bigger than putting everything on Zoom or other virtual platforms. The novel approach has the potential to revolutionise access to international experiences and make global education accessible to anyone with an internet connection, rather than merely to those privileged few with financial means to jump on a plane and spend up to a year in a foreign land.
According to a survey by the International Association of Universities in 2020, 60 per cent of universities have replaced physical student mobility with virtual mobility or collaborative online learning.
Can globalisation survive coronavirus or will the pandemic kill it?Hong Kong is a global city, and its openness to international talent has underwritten much of its development and prosperity – the territory was simply not built to be isolated from the rest of the world. The pandemic could have been catastrophic to its educational exchanges, and indeed to the very fabric of Hong Kong’s people-to-people links with mainland China and overseas.
Home to four top-100 global universities and the headquarters of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), an alliance of 61 leading universities from four continents on both sides of the Pacific, Hong Kong has taken a leadership role in developing innovative solutions which allow crucial international student exchange to thrive despite the headwinds of a once-in-a-century global health crisis.(...) Tech-driven and highly immersive, the programme received a commendation at the Times Higher Education’s prestigious Asia awards in 2021. Today, thousands of students from around the world have completed an exchange via the Virtual Student Exchange, and such virtual international experiences look set to endure post pandemic.

#covid-19#migrant#migration#monde#sante#education#etudiant#economie#connaissance#mondialisation

Chinese vice-premier calls for tougher action in Henan’s Omicron and Delta coronavirus hotspots | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3163098/chinese-vice-premier-calls-tougher-action-henans-omicron-and

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Chinese vice-premier calls for tougher action in Henan’s Omicron and Delta coronavirus hotspots
Strict prevention and control measures are needed in Henan as it battles the twin threats of the Omicron and Delta coronavirus variants, Chinese Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan said on Tuesday, capping a trip to the central province.Sun said the Omicron strain spread quickly and was highly infectious, putting containment measures in Anyang, now the centre of the province’s main outbreak, to the test, state news agency Xinhua reported.
“It is necessary to further improve the efficiency of nucleic acid testing and investigations, adopt strict social control measures, block transmission routes as soon as possible, and strictly prevent the spread of the epidemic,” Sun was quoted as saying.Henan reported 118 new local symptomatic cases on Wednesday, up from 87 the day before, according to the National Health Commission.Of those reported on Wednesday, 65 were in Anyang, where the province’s first Omicron case was detected. Meanwhile Xuchang, previously the centre of the province’s outbreak, reported 41 new cases on Wednesday, down from 74 on Tuesday.With the Lunar New Year less than three weeks away, cities in Henan have taken a series of measures to prevent further spread of the disease, including limits on return trips home.
Authorities in Anyang asked people from the city working in other centres not to return home “unless necessary” during the holiday. Anyang’s 5 million residents have been banned from leaving their homes except to get a Covid-19 test since the first Omicron case was diagnosed on Monday.
The patient was a university student who arrived from Tianjin on December 28. Anyang’s health bureau said genome sequencing showed that two of the city’s cases involved the Omicron variant but it was not known how many others were related to the strain.And on Wednesday, Anyang-administered Hua county banned its residents from entering residential compounds other than where they lived.Eleven Anyang officials were punished for poor performance combating the outbreak, including at least two who have been suspended.Authorities in Changyuan, also in Henan, said that anyone returning to the city “without permission from relevant departments” would be put under centralised quarantine at their own expense and could be prosecuted.Provincial capital Zhengzhou reported 12 new cases on Wednesday, up from 11 the day before.
Authorities said on Tuesday that with the exception of various closed and controlled areas, the city had reached “zero social transmission” in three rounds of citywide screening, meaning that all new confirmed cases had been isolated and linked to previously recorded cases.
Chinese city Yuzhou of over 1 million forced into lockdown with just 3 coronavirus cases recorded
In her comments on Tuesday, Sun said the situation in Zhengzhou had stabilised but the risk of community transmission had not been completely eliminated in Yuzhou – within Xuchang – where 1 million residents have been in lockdown for more than a week.She said authorities should ensure that residents in locked-down communities had access to supplies and basic medical care, and their demands were resolved in a timely way.
It follows a flood of public complaints about food shortages and delays in medical treatment in the Shaanxi provincial capital Xian, where 13 million people have been confined to their homes.Chinese province takes on twin coronavirus fronts of Omicron and Delta

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#sante#omicron#delta#zerocovid#deplacementinterne#confinement#depistage#resident#retour#restrictionsanitaire#controle

Vietnam complains China’s border controls to stop coronavirus spreading are ‘overkill’ | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3161810/vietnam-complains-chinas-border-controls-stop-coronavirus

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Vietnam complains China’s border controls to stop coronavirus spreading are ‘overkill’. Vietnam has criticised China’s zero-Covid policies as over the top after tight border controls caused a backlog of thousands of trucks and disrupted trade.“Pandemic prevention measures that Guangxi is applying under the ‘zero Covid’ policy, such as stopping border gate operations or stopping the import of some types of fruit, are overkill,” Vietnam’s trade ministry said after a video call with officials from the southwestern Chinese region on Friday.“This disrupted the supply chain, negatively impacted the development of bilateral trade and caused great losses to businesses and people on both sides.”The trade ministry urged China to take urgent measures to ease congestion at border crossings, including starting a pilot programme to allow fully vaccinated workers to alleviate manpower shortages by loading and unloading the trucks held up at Chinese border crossings, the trade ministry said.Two day ago, Vietnamese deputy foreign minister Nguyen Minh Vu held a phone conversation with Chinese assistant foreign minister Wu Jianghao, during which the two sides agreed to stay in close communication as they worked to resolve the problem, state-owned Vietnam News Agency reported.Trade between China and Vietnam, particularly overland, has been suffering after thousands of trucks were held up at the border following reports that imported Covid-19 cases had been detected in Pingxiang, a border city in Guangxi.Since then, China has stepped up its border controls with its neighbour, which has been grappling with a rise in infections since late November, including 16,000 new cases on Friday.
Dongxing, another border city in Guangxi, announced that it had temporarily stopped clearing cargo to pass through its port of entry on December 21, and four days later Hekou, a border town in Yunnan province, announced similar measures.On the same day, customs authorities at the Friendship Pass between Pingxiang and Vietnam’s Lang Son province urged traders to look for alternative shipping routes as its clearance capacity had been pushed to the limit “due to the development of the epidemic situation outside the country”. China has also imposed a four-week ban on dragon fruit imports from Friendship Pass, the largest road crossing between the two countries, until January 26 after the health authorities in Shanxi province said they had found coronavirus on packaging from Vietnam.
According to the Vietnamese agriculture ministry, in the first 11 months of 2021, the total import-export turnover of agriculture products between the two countries reached more than US$11.3 billion, a 19.5 per cent increase on the same period last year. Vietnamese media reports say many exporters have had to turn back from the border because of the new controls and are now trying to sell the fruit at a lower price at home to limit their losses.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#vietnam#sante#zerocovid#frontiere#circulation#commerce#agriculture#epidemie

Coronavirus: Pakistan ‘sees 5th wave begin’; Singapore’s open-border resolve tested as imported cases soar | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3161837/coronavirus-australia-pm-scott-morrison-monitoring-symptoms

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Coronavirus: Singapore’s open-border resolve tested as imported cases soar
Singapore reported more Covid-19 infections among travellers from abroad than local cases for the first time in nearly half a year, testing the resolve of the city state to keep its borders open amid the worldwide spread of the Omicron variant.There were 260 imported cases reported as of noon on January 1, compared to 187 community infections, according to data released by the health ministry. The last time Covid-19 cases among travellers surpassed local infections was on July 12.While Singapore has chosen to freeze ticket sales via its vaccinated travel lanes until late January, the business hub’s decision to maintain quarantine-free travel for vaccinated people from several countries, including omicron hotspots such as Britain and the United States, is increasingly being tested. Other nations including Thailand halted quarantine-free entry to prevent the spread of the new variant.So far, officials in the city state have also elected to tighten testing requirements for visitors and defer other travel initiatives, while keeping strict domestic virus measures in place, as local clusters of the Omicron variant emerge. Singapore is also depending on further vaccinating what is already one of the most inoculated populations in the world to fend off a potential new wave. About 20,000 children have received their first shot since the vaccination drive for them started on December 27, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing said in a Facebook post on Sunday.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#singapour#sante#casimporte#vaccination#quarataine#omicron#grandebretagne#etatsunis

More quarantine hotel rooms needed for arriving domestic workers as manpower shortage could weaken Hong Kong’s economic recovery, labour chief says | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3161864/more-quarantine-hotel-rooms-needed-arriving

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More quarantine hotel rooms needed for arriving domestic workers as manpower shortage could weaken Hong Kong’s economic recovery, labour chief says. Hong Kong should provide more hotel rooms for arriving domestic helpers to serve out their quarantine, the labour chief has said, warning the current manpower shortage could weaken the city’s economic recovery.Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong on Sunday also revealed that the number of foreign domestic helpers had dropped from more than 400,000 two years ago to about 350,000 amid the Covid-19 pandemic – a decline which he said would have a wider effect on the city.
“The impact will not be limited to the relevant families or those people who required caretaking from domestic helpers,” Law wrote on his official blog.
“As some members will have to quit their jobs to take care of their families, the labour market and many industries in Hong Kong are set to be affected. If the situation continues, it may affect the city’s overall economic recovery.”
While no regulations limit the number of domestic workers entering the city, only three quarantine hotels have been designated to handle arriving helpers, creating an effective cap and leading to bidding wars for their services in some instances.With the Omicron variant spreading and more arrivals from various countries required to serve an initial four days of quarantine at the government’s Penny’s Bay facility on Lantau Island, the 1,000 slots originally designated for domestic helpers there will no longer be reserved for them from this month.Instead, arriving domestic workers and those who have not completed their isolation at Penny’s Bay will be moved to the new Regala Skycity Hotel, also on Lantau. It will provide 1,138 rooms in addition to the 1,000 offered by two other properties, the Rambler Garden Hotel and Courtyard by Marriott Hong Kong.Law expected the number of new helpers arriving in the city would not increase drastically in the short term, given most of the new slots provided by the Regala Skycity Hotel in January would be “offset” by those who were originally scheduled to go through their isolation in Penny’s Bay.“The Labour Department will continue to work closely with hotels that are suitable and interested in becoming designated quarantine facilities for foreign domestic helpers. I hope that good news will be announced in the short term,” Law said.
He added authorities would monitor the Covid-19 situation in the Philippines and Indonesia, where most of Hong Kong’s helpers came from.
Cheung Kit-man, chairman of the Hong Kong Employment Agencies Association, said more that 4,000 foreign domestic helpers were waiting to work in the city, with the delay for some longer than a year.“All hotel rooms are fully booked in the coming months,” Cheung said. “If an extra 1,000 quarantine rooms could be provided, I think we can clear the backlog within three to four months.”Cheung estimated that at least 10,000 employers had given up hiring a helper in the past year.But Betty Yung Ma Shan-yee, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Employers of Overseas Domestic Helpers’ Association, said the government should increase the capacity in a controlled manner to avoid community outbreaks of Covid-19.“The scheme should be more flexible – if more imported cases from the Philippines and Indonesia are recorded, the government should not increase the quota,” Yung said.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#travailleurmigrant#domestique#sante#quarantaine#care#philippines#quota#politiquemigratoire#indonesie#pandemie

Japan’s pandemic-era isolation sparks concerns of rising xenophobia amid anti-foreigner backlash | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/3161122/japans-pandemic-era-isolation-sparks-concerns-rising-xenophobia

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Japan’s pandemic-era isolation sparks concerns of rising xenophobia amid anti-foreigner backlash
A campaign against non-citizens voting, amid claims ‘80,000 Chinese people’ could move to Tokyo, followed an unusual US embassy warning on racial profiling. The incidents are feeding worries that Japan is souring on immigration as it approaches a third year of pandemic-driven border closures and economic upheaval
From a ban on new foreign arrivals to a campaign against efforts to let non-citizens vote, a series of developments in Japan is raising new concerns about xenophobia in Asia’s second-largest economy.Lawmakers in the Tokyo suburb of Musashino overruled the local mayor on Wednesday and rejected a bill that would have allowed residents of other nationalities to vote on some issues. The decision came after several prominent Liberal Democratic Party legislators launched a campaign against the plan, with former Vice Foreign Minister Masahisa Sato warning on Twitter that “80,000 Chinese people” could move to the city and influence its politics.
Last month, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government initiated new border controls that ban new entries by foreigners amid concerns about the Omicron variant of Covid-19. Separately, the US embassy in Tokyo issued an unusual warning on December 6 about suspected racial profiling of foreigners by local police – an allegation the government has denied.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s government initiated new border controls last month that ban new entries by foreigners.
The incidents are feeding worries that Japan is souring on immigration as it approaches a third year of pandemic-driven border closures and economic upheaval. The government’s ban on arrivals by foreigners who lack existing residency status was backed by almost 90 per cent of respondents in one media poll.“It’s not only in Japan that the pandemic fanned xenophobic sentiments, but this is a country with a long-standing tradition of insular nationalist conservatism,” said Koichi Nakano, a professor of political science at Sophia University. “Already before Covid, nationalism was exploited by some politicians to divert public attention away from real domestic ills that they did not want to deal with. But since last year, there has been an excessive, unscientific, and inhumane focus on ‘offshore measures’, such as the entry ban, by the Japanese government.”
Japan: now open to foreign workers, but still just as racist?While the island nation of 125 million has long been known for its hurdles to immigration, the government had warmed to overseas labour in recent years, because of the need to offset a shrinking workforce. The number of foreign workers in Japan more than doubled to 1.7 million in the seven years to 2020, many of them in the construction and service industries. A poll by national broadcaster NHK carried out in March 2020, before the pandemic took hold in Japan, found that most respondents favoured more immigration. The Tourism Agency still maintains a target of attracting 60 million foreign visitors in 2030.The ban on foreign entries also runs counter to the LDP’s stated goal of bolstering Tokyo’s status as an international financial centre by luring away global companies concerned about Beijing’s interference in Hong Kong. The number of foreign citizens living in Japan fell 2 per cent to 2.8 million in June, compared with six months earlier, according to the Justice Ministry.The response to Musashino Mayor Reiko Matsushita’s proposal to let some 3,000 non-citizens vote in local referendums illustrates the political forces against increased immigration. Matsushita told broadcaster TBS before the vote that she wanted “to make diversity into a strength and realise a multicultural society” in the city of 150,000.
“We’ll create a system whereby people have an opportunity to express opinions on important issues regardless of their nationality,” she said.
It is the people of the country, not foreigners, who have the right to make decisions 70 LDP lawmakers’ statement on proposed voting changes in MusashinoNon-Japanese are not permitted to vote in any local or national elections, by contrast with several countries in Europe, including Britain and Ireland. New York city this month also approved a measure allowing non-citizens to participate in local elections.Japan narrows the path to enfranchisement for immigrants by banning dual citizenship. Still, two other Japanese districts have ordinances similar to the one Matsushita proposed, while more than 40 allow foreigners to vote in referendums under certain circumstances.Besides Sato, who denounced the proposal as “no good”, a group of about 70 LDP lawmakers urged parliamentary action to prevent such efforts from advancing in the future. “It is the people of the country, not foreigners, who have the right to make decisions,” the group said in a statement.Kishida’s top spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, declined to comment on the controversy. Meanwhile, with Omicron infections soaring globally and Japan’s daily Covid-19 deaths in the single digits, Kishida has little incentive to ease the border measures. He frequently mentions that the country’s clampdown on entry is the most severe among the Group of Seven nations and told reporters on Tuesday that existing border controls would stay in place for the time being.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#japon#sante#pandemie#frontiere#etranger#nationalisme#immigration#politiquemigratoire#etranger

Coronavirus: Britain, US top exporters of Omicron to Hong Kong so far, with cases expected to surge over Christmas holidays | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3160526/coronavirus-britain-us-top-exporters-omicron-hong

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Coronavirus: Britain, US top exporters of Omicron to Hong Kong so far, with cases expected to surge over Christmas holidays
Published: 3:20pm, 21 Dec, 2021
About a quarter of Hong Kong’s imported Covid-19 Omicron infections so far have been arrivals from Britain, the most from any country, with the United States next in line, a Post review of recent cases has found amid a near-daily detection rate of the highly transmissive variant over the past week.As Omicron continued its global spread, a medical expert on Tuesday warned that a surge of such infections over the next week was all but certain, with residents coming back to the city for the holidays.
“As more residents return to Hong Kong from Britain and the United States, the city will see the number of imported infections increase substantially”, said Dr Ho Pak-leung, an infectious disease expert from the University of Hong Kong.He also criticised the government for waiting until Tuesday to add the United Kingdom to the new highest-risk category, just over a week after the country was found to be the source of two imported Omicron infections.“From the anti-pandemic perspective, it’s not ideal, and will increase the infection risks to Hong Kong,” he told a local radio programme.
Hong Kong on Tuesday confirmed eight new Covid-19 cases, including seven that carried N501Y, a key mutation linked to Omicron. Those infections took the city’s overall tally to 12,541, with 213 related deaths.
Separately, the government announced that all its employees would be required to present proof of Covid-19 vaccination when entering official buildings for work, taking effect in mid-February next year.Since the city’s first Omicron case was confirmed in late November, a total of 19 – all imported – have been recorded.
Five returned to the city from Britain, accounting for 26.3 per cent of all cases. The United States came in second, with four cases, while the rest were spread mostly among African countries including South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.Since December 12, almost every day has included an Omicron infection among the Covid-19 caseload. On Friday, four of the seven cases involved the new variant, the most yet in a single day.Ho on Tuesday warned the city to brace for a surge in such cases as residents flocked home for Christmas from countries where Omicron had already become the dominant version of Covid-19.Britain was added to Hong Kong’s highest coronavirus risk category on Tuesday, meaning arrivals from that country must now spend the first portion of their mandatory quarantine at the government’s Penny’s Bay facility.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#grandebretagne#afriquedusud#kenya#nigeria#sante#omicron#frontiere#circulation#casimporte#variant

Coronavirus: UK lifts Omicron travel ban for 11 African nations | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3159718/coronavirus-uk-lifts-omicron-travel-ban-11-african-nations

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Coronavirus: UK lifts Omicron travel ban for 11 African nations
Countries on the UK’s travel red list include South Africa, Zambia and Botswana. Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the measure is less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad as the new variant has already taken hold in Britain
Britain will remove all 11 countries from its Covid-19 travel red list from Wednesday because there is now community transmission of Omicron, Health Secretary Sajid Javid told parliament.The British government added the southern African countries to its red list in late November, meaning that entry was only allowed to UK citizens or residents who then must quarantine in a hotel, in a bid to slow the spread of the new variant.“Now that there is community transmission of Omicron in the UK and Omicron has spread so widely across the world, the travel red list is now less effective in slowing the incursion of Omicron from abroad,” Javid said.
UK’s PM Boris Johnson accused of ‘culture of disregard’ for Covid-19 rules
13 Dec 2021“Whilst we will maintain our temporary testing measures for international travel we will be removing all 11 countries from the travel red list effective from 4am tomorrow morning.”Britain requires all inbound travellers to take either a PCR or a rapid lateral flow test a maximum of 48 hours before departure.Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said these testing measures would be reviewed in the first week of January.
What do we know about the new coronavirus variant Omicron?“As always, we keep all our travel measures under review and we may impose new restrictions should there be a need to do so to protect public health,” he said on Twitter.The 11 countries which will be removed from the list are Angola, Botswana, Eswantini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#grandebretagne#omicron#sante#angola#botswana#eswantini#lesotho#malawi#mozambique#namibie#nigeria#africadusud#zambie#zimbabwe#frontiere#circulation#santepublique#restrictionsanitaire

Green quarantine? Hong Kong hotels under pressure to recycle plastics thrown out by guests spending weeks in Covid-19 isolation | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3159356/green-quarantine-hong-kong-hotels-under-pressure

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Green quarantine? Hong Kong hotels under pressure to recycle plastics thrown out by guests spending weeks in Covid-19 isolation. Experts caution against recycling items from rooms of quarantined guests, citing Covid-19 risk NGO Green Earth estimates hotels have used at least 100 million plastic items during pandemic
Hong Kong’s green groups are alarmed by the large amount of plastic tossed out by hotels where arrivals undergo compulsory quarantine during the Covid-19 pandemic.They want authorities, hotels and even quarantined guests themselves to cut the use of plastic water bottles, disposable utensils, tableware and toiletries, and try to do more to recycle.But some medical experts cautioned against sending items from quarantine hotel rooms into the community, citing the risk of spreading the coronavirus.
Green Earth, a charity that has focused on plastic waste since 2016, estimated that at least 100 million such items had been used at quarantine hotels since the pandemic began last year.Hahn Chu Hon-keung, a director of the group, said that assuming all 86,282 travellers quarantined so far had spent 14 days in a hotel, at least 120,000 water bottles and 13 million plastic items such as food containers and cutlery were used every month. Some in fact stayed 21 days.Chu, who underwent quarantine himself last month, said he emailed his hotel before arriving to ask it not to place bottled water in his room. He also requested reusable cutlery for his stay.
The Dorsett Tsuen Wan Hotel, where Chu stayed for 14 days, told the Post the amount of plastic items given to quarantine guests was so large that it had introduced reusable cutlery.It provided bottled water unless guests said they did not want it, and there were kettles for guests to use in their rooms.
The Amber Foundation, a charity which has collected unused hotel toiletries and airline kits for distribution to street sleepers, women in shelters and others, urged quarantined hotel guests to donate unused, sealed items.
How to use Hong Kong’s ‘Leave Home Safe’ app to enter mainland China and Macau quarantine free. Chairwoman Elizabeth Thomson said it used to repackage the donations into toiletry kits for men and women. Since the pandemic, these donations have surged.“We used to put together about 5,000 toiletry kits every year, but in the last month alone, we distributed more than 1,000 kits,” she said.Thomson said quarantined hotel guests could save unused items to recycle rather than leave them behind to be thrown away when they checked out.She said it would help if the Department of Health explained whether everything from the guests’ rooms had to be thrown out or if sealed toiletries such as liquid soap and shampoo could be given away.If there was nothing wrong with the items, the hotels could work with NGOs to recycle them and cut wastage, she added.
“If we try counting the number of plastic waste [items] in a quarantine hotel, it would be horrifying,” Thomson said.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#sante#hongkong#sante#quarantaine#hotel#chine#macau#frontiere#circulation

Separated from sick family members, Hong Kong’s poorest ask why business travellers should visit mainland China before they do | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3159397/separated-sick-family-members-hong-kongs-poorest

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Separated from sick family members, Hong Kong’s poorest ask why business travellers should visit mainland China before they do Quarantine too expensive for many to cross border, local NGO says, urging government to use half of initial travel quota for reuniting families City leader Carrie Lam has previously said business community will take priority when border gradually reopens, something expected to take place after coming Legco poll
Low-income Hongkongers hoping to visit sick relatives in mainland China are calling on the government to give them equal priority with business travellers when the border begins gradually reopening soon.At least 10,000 residents urgently need to reunite with family members, but the city is treating them as an afterthought, according to Sze Lai-shan, deputy director of NGO the Society of Community Organisation (SoCO).“Its inhumane and unfair for those with families in need to be excluded from the [initial] cross-border quota,” Sze said on Sunday while urging the government to reserve half the slots for such visits.Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor last month said business travellers would take priority in the coming quarantine-free travel programme. Sze said numerous families were left disappointed and angry.The programme – initially limited to neighbouring Guangdong province – was expected to be launched shortly after the December 19 Legislative Council election, the Post reported earlier, though only a few hundred people a day were likely to be allowed to cross.At least 80 per cent of low-income families surveyed by SoCO in February indicated that they needed to visit the mainland regularly to take care of their families, with 70 per cent saying coronavirus border controls made helping them impossible.Another 15 per cent complained of being unable to return to attend the funerals of loved ones.At a Sunday press conference, low-income Hongkongers were moved to tears as they described the painful experience of not being able to reunite with ill or dying family members during the 21 months of the border being closed due to coronavirus restrictions.Many said they could not afford the expense of quarantine, including the need to apply for extended leave from work.
Chen Haiyan, a 49-year-old bakery worker, said her father, 93, had a lung condition and was in such a frail state he had fallen several times. Her mother, who was in her 80s and dealing with eyesight issues, did not have the money to take him to a doctor.While her parents had typically taken care of each other, their health issues made it increasingly challenging to do so, according to Chen, who said border restrictions made it impossible for her to help.“My mother keeps asking when she can see me, as she misses me. I told her I want to go back so badly too, but it’s not possible, as quarantine is so expensive and my salary is too low. I can’t give her the money she needs,” said Chen, who works in a bakery.Chan Siu-bing, a resident in her 40s, said her mother in Guangdong had suffered a stroke last month and needed constant supervision, while her father had also recently undergone an operation.Chan, who has underlying health issues of her own, said: “I even took the vaccine in August despite my doctor not recommending it, just so I could go back. But even then, I’m still not allowed to do so.”Chan said she hoped she could soon travel to the mainland with her autistic 16-year-old daughter who was close to her grandparents.In calling for allowing families to cross the border on compassionate grounds, Sze suggested reserving 50 per cent of the any quota for needy residents, while noting the pandemic situation in Hong Kong and the mainland had stabilised in recent months.“In the past two years, [there has been an accumulation of] many family needs. In the beginning, 30 per cent of the quota could go to urgent family matters, and another 20 per cent for family visits,” she said. “Maybe after a certain period, the quota could then be increased.”

#Covid-19#migration#migrant#hongkong#chine#sante#migrationtherapeutique#frontiere#circulation#quarantaine

Coronavirus: Hong Kong authorities set to unveil health code system, paving way for mainland China border reopening | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3158032/coronavirus-hong-kong-authorities-set-unveil

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Coronavirus: Hong Kong authorities set to unveil health code system, paving way for mainland China border reopening

Hong Kong authorities are set to unveil a Covid-19 health code system on Thursday, paving the way for the long-awaited reopening of the city’s border with mainland China later this month, the Post has learned.
Sources said the government would reveal details of the scheme, which would allow travellers to cross the border to Guangdong province and Macau without needing to undergo quarantine.The development comes after a meeting with mainland officials last week, during which the city was told it had met the “basic requirements” for border reopening, with only a few obstacles remaining, such as a health code app and further tightening of quarantine rules for aircrew.The move will bring the city more in line with mainland travel rules, but Hong Kong’s health code system is not expected to have a movement-tracking function, unlike the version across the border because of residents’ privacy concerns. A source said testing earlier this week of conversions of the Hong Kong health code to the Guangdong and Macau versions – needed when travellers cross from one jurisdiction to another – had been “very successful”, and a dry run of border openings had also been conducted and went smoothly.Francis Fong Po-kiu, honorary president of the Hong Kong Information Technology Federation, said he had learned from government and industry sources that authorities would not require all residents to integrate the existing “Leave Home Safe” risk-exposure app with the one for health codes, only travellers to the mainland would have to do so.
To generate a health code, users will have to provide their real name and home address, as well as upload their vaccination record and Covid-19 test results.Users will have to export their visit records from the Leave Home Safe app over the past 21 days into a file, which will then be uploaded to the website. A self-filled health declaration form will also be needed.
Once all the information is uploaded to the webpage, it will generate a colour-coded QR code, and the data will be sent to relevant government departments. The code will be scanned by border officers for those who need to travel to the mainland.Fong said he believed the Hong Kong version of the health code would not have real-time global positioning system (GPS) tracking because of technical limitations.The mainland version can store users’ travel history and generate a colour-coded warning system based on exposure risks to Covid-19 patients.Another component is the “itinerary code”, which tracks a user’s whereabouts using mobile phone signal data. This code makes use of data from three major telecoms companies on the mainland – China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile.It can show which countries or mainland cities a user has visited in the past 14 days. The code also captures the user’s movements with precision and stores the information for use by the authorities.
But a code scheme has proved a controversial issue in Hong Kong, especially if it carries a movement-tracking function, over privacy concerns. The Leave Home Safe app, launched over a year ago last November, is a Covid-19 exposure notification device that allows users to scan QR codes outside buildings before entry and has since been made mandatory at government premises.Neighbouring Macau has its own health code system for border-crossing arrangements with Guangdong province and is regarded as a model for Hong Kong.Macau’s code does not have a tracking function, but generates coloured QR codes which indicate a person’s risk level based on their health status, possible contact with Covid-19 patients and travel history. The QR code, updated daily, is required to be displayed when people enter large public venues.It also allows users with negative test results to switch over to Guangdong’s health code system when they cross the border, but the two apps are not directly linked.Last Saturday, Macau launched a bus pass scheme that required passengers to register with their names to tap contactless stored-value cards when boarding a bus. Officials said the scheme could allow better Covid-19 contact tracing, and as of 10am on Tuesday, more than 165,000 people had registered online. It is uncertain this higher standard of tracing in Macau will increase pressure for Hong Kong to follow suit.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#macau#hongkong#sante#QRcode#tracking#droit

World scrambles to contain Omicron coronavirus variant | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3157621/world-scrambles-contain-omicron-coronavirus-variant

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World scrambles to contain Omicron coronavirus variant
The emergence of a coronavirus variant with a large number of mutations could pose new challenges for China but too little was known about the strain, according to one of the country’s top respiratory disease specialists.
Chinese media reported Zhong Nanshan’s assessment of the Omicron variant on Saturday as countries around the world scrambled to contain the variety first found in southern Africa and identified on Friday by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a variant “of concern”.The WHO cautioned countries against “hastily” tightened travel restrictions.
A number of jurisdictions, from the European Union, to the United States, Hong Kong and Russia, tightened limits on travellers from countries in southern Africa.Dozens of confirmed cases have been identified in South Africa, Hong Kong, Botswana, Belgium and Israel, while suspected cases have been reported in the Czech Republic and Germany.Dutch officials said 61 people on two flights from South Africa to Amsterdam tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday, but it was not clear if they were infected with the new variant. China did not announce any new travel restrictions in response to the variant but the country has one of the strictest restrictions on border entry and flights. It has also introduced a flight suspension mechanism if there are more than five positive cases on board.
Sanjaya Senanayake, associate professor of medicine at the Australian National University, said Omicron was troubling because of its high number of mutations. Research indicated that it had 32 spike protein mutations, compared with the 13 to 17 seen in the more prevalent Delta variant.
“Some of these mutations can increase transmissibility of the variant, while others can help it evade the immune system: a worrying combination,” he told the Australian Science Media Centre. In a post on the website of Imperial College in London, Neil Ferguson, director of the college’s MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, said such a number of mutations in the spike protein gene was “unprecedented”. According to the WHO, early signs indicate an increased risk of reinfection from Omicron compared to other highly transmissible variants – meaning people who have had Covid-19 and recovered could be at greater risk of catching it again with Omicron.The WHO said studies were under way in South Africa and other countries to better understand the variant in terms of transmissibility, severity and any impact on the use of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.US infectious disease chief Anthony Fauci said that while the reports on the new variant threw up a “red flag”, it was possible that vaccines might still work to prevent serious illness.

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