Coronavirus: Hong Kong-mainland China border unlikely to reopen before February, government adviser says | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3151036/coronavirus-hong-kong-mainland-china-border
Coronavirus: Hong Kong-mainland China border unlikely to reopen before February, government adviser says. Negotiations on reviving travel could stretch on for four to five months, according to government adviser’s estimate. Government steps up work on developing a health code for residents that must meet Beijing’s conditions for allowing quarantine-free travel. Reopening Hong Kong’s border with mainland China will take at least four to five months of negotiations, according to a Covid-19 adviser to the local government, which is also stepping up work on developing a health code for residents that must meet Beijing’s conditions for allowing quarantine-free travel.Professor David Hui Shu-cheong said the mainland border could only reopen to Hongkongers alongside the introduction of a health code app, adding the Innovation and Technology Bureau (ITB) was looking at requiring users to share their vaccination records and 21-day travel history.“The ITB is developing a cross-border code which needs to hold records of negative Covid tests and vaccinations, and state that the [user] is not a close contact of any confirmed case,” Hui said. The groundwork for the app, which was initially based on Covid-19 screening results, was completed last year but Hong Kong’s fourth wave of coronavirus infections ended the prospect of the border reopening and the scheme was never implemented. The inability to track Hongkongers’ movements and contact-trace any infection when they cross the border has long been a major obstacle to allowing quarantine-free travel, as the city’s health code is not linked to the mainland’s because of privacy concerns.
Secretary for Innovation and Technology Alfred Sit Wing-hang confirmed that in preparation for the border reopening his bureau would look at how to refine the app. “We will conduct a full review to ensure more effective epidemic controls,” he said.But he did not answer any questions on whether the review would look at requiring residents to share their data with mainland authorities.Government adviser Hui, however, said that mainland authorities wanted the phone numbers required for signing up for the app to be registered under users’ real names.
Earlier, Hui said in a television interview that his estimate for how long the border negotiations would take was based on Macau’s experience of reviving travel with the mainland.Hui, a respiratory medicine expert from Chinese University, said that authorities across the border would issue Hong Kong an action list for improving its current system of coronavirus controls, with mainland health experts likely to be sent to the city to inspect progress. “As long as we can prevent the coronavirus from entering the city from abroad, ensure there is no spread of the virus within the city and step up safety controls to the same level as China’s, then I believe we will be able to reopen the border,” he said. The government adviser added he expected a second meeting between health officials and experts from both sides after talks opened on September 26. As part of the initial discussions, Hong Kong has been asked to strengthen its epidemic controls through measures such as tightening quarantine exemption rules, as well as sharing data with the mainland.Hui added the city would also have to tighten its rules on discharging Covid-19 patients from hospital.In Hong Kong, coronavirus patients can be released if their cycle threshold (CT) value is above 33, suggesting they have a very low viral level. But that system is not used on the mainland, where patients can only be discharged after twice testing negative for the virus.“In Hong Kong’s case, we have seen that if the CT value is above 33, the body is essentially producing dead viruses and we haven’t seen any transmission from such patients,” Hui said. “But China says this standard is not recognised by the World Health Organization and does not have enough basis.”
#Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#hongkong#sante#circulation#frontiere#quarantaine#variant#test