• Macau shuts all casinos in bid to contain worsening Covid outbreak | Macau | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/11/macau-shuts-all-casinos-in-bid-to-contain-worsening-covid-outbreak
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c9369f062f6b3f90b473e461e89b92180605d409/0_70_3500_2101/master/3500.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

    Macau shuts all casinos in bid to contain worsening Covid outbreak
    More than 30 closed for a week – with extension thought likely – and dozens of city zones locked down in gambling hub. Macau has shut all its casinos for the first time in more than two years as authorities struggle to contain the worst coronavirus outbreak yet in the world’s biggest gambling hub.The city’s 30-plus casinos, along with other non-essential businesses, will shut for one week from Monday and people have been ordered to stay at home. Police would monitor flows of people outside, the government said, and stringent punishments would be imposed for those who disobeyed.Hospitals, pharmacies, supermarkets and fresh food markets are some of the essential services that can remain open.More than 30 zones in the city that have been deemed high risk are now under lockdown, meaning no one is allowed to enter or exit for at least five days. While the government said it was not imposing a citywide lockdown, the stringent measures mean Macau is effectively closed.Macau adheres to China’s “zero-Covid” policy that aims to stamp out all outbreaks, running counter to a global trend of trying to coexist with the virus.Casinos were last shut in Macau in February 2020 for 15 days.The government had previously been hesitant to close casinos due to its mandate to protect jobs. The industry employs most of the population directly or indirectly and accounts for more than 80% of government revenues.Casinos owned by Sands China, Wynn Macau, SJM Holdings, Galaxy Entertainment, Melco Resorts and MGM Resorts have been effectively shut for the past few weeks, with no gamblers and minimal staffing as per government requirements for people to work from home.Analysts said it was likely that the suspension could be extended by another few weeks, with a recovery in gaming revenue unlikely until the end of the third or fourth quarter.“Even if the outbreak in Macau gets under control, it will likely be another few weeks before Macau-Zhuhai can remove quarantine requirements,” said Terry Ng, an analyst at Daiwa Capital Markets in Hong Kong.Frustration is mounting at the government’s handling of the outbreak. Some residents have got into fights at testing centres while others have had to queue for more than 20 hours to access healthcare facilities.Residents will be required to take part in mass Covid tests four times this week as the government attempts to cut transmission chains.Residents have already been tested six times since mid June and are expected to do rapid antigen tests daily.More than 90% of Macau’s 600,000 residents are fully vaccinated against Covid but this is the first time the city has had to grapple with the fast-spreading Omicron variant.Authorities have added two hotels in popular casino resorts to be used as Covid medical facilities as they try to increase capacity to handle the surge of infections.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#sante#macau#confinement#zerocovid#omicron#depistage#vaccination#quarantaine#hongkong#mobilite#frontiere#casino#economie

  • Hong Kong considers Covid health code system similar to mainland China, city logs 2,992 infections | South China Morning Post
    https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3184763/hong-kong-mulls-coronavirus-code-system-similar

    Hong Kong considers Covid health code system similar to mainland China, city logs 2,992 infections. Secretary for Health Dr Lo Chung-mau says proposed measure would prevent freedoms of uninfected residents from being affected by Covid-positive people. Lack of protection of individual privacy and sensitive information with code remains concern among public, says Democratic Party spokesman Ramon Yuen
    Hong Kong may adjust its Covid-19 app to require real-name registration as mainland China does to ensure residents subject to compulsory testing orders avoid entering high-risk areas, the city’s new health minister has said. But Secretary for Health Dr Lo Chung-mau on Sunday brushed aside concerns that the proposed measure would be unpopular with Hongkongers, arguing it would enhance the freedoms of uninfected residents. Lo said the measure was justified, given the government was seeking to avoid tightening social-distancing measures.“[If] we can’t find infected people or can’t quarantine them on time, we end up ‘quarantining’ people who are negative. We hope we don’t have to do this,” he said.
    Health officials on Sunday reported 2,992 new Covid-19 cases, including 219 imported ones, and two additional deaths. The city’s overall coronavirus tally stands at 1,270,800 infections and 9,412 related fatalities.
    Commissioner of Customs and Excise Louise Ho Pui-shan was placed under quarantine after one of her colleagues tested preliminary-positive, although her own test came back negative. Meanwhile, the health minister said there were limitations to the city’s “Leave Home Safe” contact-tracing app, which could not prevent coronavirus-positive people from accessing public areas or inform residents they were entering high-risk locations. While he noted that adding a tracking function was “not the first thing to do”, Lo said he believed it was more important for residents to register their real names to use the app.“[The app] is currently limited to telling whether a person is considered to be high-risk, and that they are not supposed to go to higher-risk areas before they do PCR [polymerase chain reaction] testing,” he said.
    Lo added that the current compulsory testing order, despite its name, had “no coercive means at all”, making it unfair for residents as high-risk people could still roam around the city without detection.
    When asked whether the potential measure could have any similarities to the health code systems used by Macau and the mainland, Lo replied that the Hong Kong government had taken both into consideration as a part of the proposal.The mainland’s health code app is used to track and contain Covid-19 patients by providing central authorities with user data such as locations, times and personal interactions.The QR codes generally follow a traffic-light system, with the colours affecting where residents can go and how they are treated: a green code declares a resident has not been exposed to any potential cases or risky areas, while yellow and red codes mean they are of higher risk.Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch, said she had no comment about Lo’s proposal and that the government would make relevant announcements when it was ready.But she acknowledged the contact-tracing app had limitations and said there were no estimate on the number of infected people who had not reported their positive case to authorities.Although the app had residents’ phone numbers, authorities could still face difficulties in reaching some people for contact-tracing purposes if they did not answer the calls, Chuang said.The centre also had to rely on other government departments to obtain residents’ vaccine pass information whenever there was an outbreak, as it did not have access to such details, she added.She said the centre did not have any information on the number of visitors at particular premises if no infections were reported there.“Macau adopted the mainland-like code system but still suffered an outbreak recently. After all, measures on social distancing and quarantine are still key to controlling the spread, especially in cities that have not reached herd immunity,” he said.Leung added that the proportion of the population in both cities that was immune to the virus due to vaccination or prior infection was still low compared with other places. If Hong Kong implemented the mainland’s app functions, it was crucial to reduce the time needed to synchronise the compulsory testing orders with residents’ phones, otherwise it would be futile if there were delays that lasted for days, he added.Ramon Yuen Hoi-man, the Democratic Party’s healthcare policy spokesman, said the lack of protection of individual privacy and sensitive information with the code system remained a concern among the public.He added that he was worried about the implications of introducing new restrictive measures after the fifth wave of infections had already subsided.“Overseas research has shown that stringent Covid-19 measures have been unfavourable to social harmony and unity. Is this something the new government really hopes to pursue?” he said.Medical and health services lawmaker Dr David Lam Tzit-yuen said privacy issues were not a concern as long as authorities were restricted to tracking a person’s identity and other personal information only if they were deemed to be at risk.“[The code system] is the way to go for better protecting the community. Privacy issues, which could be solved by the right algorithms, should not trump safety of others,” he said.Health minister Lo also said he planned to increase the frequency of PCR tests and require high-risk people, such as employees of nursing homes, to undergo such screening once a week, on top of rapid antigen tests, before increasing it to twice a week or every 48 hours.The new administration led by Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has repeatedly stressed the importance of using PCR tests at an earlier stage more effectively, which it said would exclude people who were not infected from tough restrictions.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#sante#hongkong#macau#chine#QRcode#controlesanitaire#politiquesanitaire#depistage#zerocovid#testPCR#restrictionsanitaire#surveillance

  • Shanghai lockdown: some parents allowed to stay with Covid-positive children after backlash | China | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/07/shanghai-lockdown-some-parents-allowed-to-stay-with-covid-positive-chil
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/afcacc667f64f6e84fb3a4e5381b268dd005f536/0_171_3851_2310/master/3851.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

    Shanghai lockdown: some parents allowed to stay with Covid-positive children after backlash
    Sanitation workers wearing PPE conduct disinfection work in Shanghai.
    Shanghai is allowing some parents to stay with their Covid-infected children during lockdown after a public backlash. Photograph: VCG/Getty Images
    Associated Press
    Shanghai is allowing at least some parents to stay with children infected with Covid-19, making an exception to a policy of isolating anyone who tests positive after a public outcry.The announcement came as China’s largest city remained in lockdown and conducted more mass testing on Wednesday following another jump in new cases.A top city health official said at a news conference that parents could apply to stay with children with “special needs” and accompany them if they fully comprehend the health risks and sign an agreement.
    The parents must wear masks, dine at a different time than their children, avoid sharing items with them and strictly follow all regulations, said Wu Qianyu of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission. She did not define what qualified as “special needs.”Her announcement followed Chinese state media reports a day earlier that an isolation site set up at the Shanghai New International Expo Center was accepting children with parents. The city has opened sprawling isolation centres for tens of thousands of people to isolate the growing number of positive cases.Reports that parents were being separated from their infected children had sparked a wave of protest online last weekend, fuelled by photos showing several children in cots at a quarantine site with no parents in sight.Footage of a pet corgi being beaten to death on the streets of Shanghai over fears it may have the virus has also sparked outrage and frustration with China’s zero-Covid policy.
    “There is no humanity, and while the whole world is living a normal and orderly life, there are still ‘volunteers’ who have lost their humanity. Happening in China in 2022. Very sad,” one person wrote on Weibo.Last November, the death of another corgi – killed in its apartment while its owner was serving mandatory hotel quarantine in Jiangxi province – sparked a similar outcry.Shanghai reported 17,077 new cases detected over the previous day, all but 311 of them in people who showed no symptoms. Under China’s zero-Covid approach, the city requires all those who test positive to be held in designated locations for observation, along with their close contacts.The latest cases bring Shanghai’s total to about 90,000 in an outbreak that began last month. No deaths have been ascribed to the outbreak driven by the Omicron BA.2 variant, which is much more infectious but also less lethal than the previous Delta strain. Two deaths have been reported in another ongoing outbreak in Jilin province in China’s northeast.
    An official from the EU Chamber of Commerce in China joined a growing chorus of criticism of the Shanghai lockdown, which has disrupted daily life and commerce in a major financial and business centre.
    “Another really big fear is ending up in one of those mass central quarantine sites,” Schoen-Behanzin said in an online event for member companies and journalists.Others complained earlier about shortages of medical workers, volunteers and beds in the isolation wards. More than 38,000 health workers from 15 provinces have been sent to Shanghai to help with mass testing and other needs.Beijing is also tightening measures after 11 cases were detected in the Chinese capital in recent days. Authorities closed down a shopping and office centre in the busy Wangjing district and are requiring those arriving in the city to report to their place of work or residence within 12 hours and undergo a Covid-19 test within 72 hours. They must undergo another test within 48 hours of returning to their place of work.Despite growing public frustration and concerns about the economic effects, China says it is sticking to its hard-line “zero-tolerance” approach mandating lockdowns, mass testing and the compulsory isolation of all suspected cases and close contacts. While China’s vaccination rate hovers about 90%, its domestically produced inactivated virus vaccines are seen as weaker than the mRNA vaccines such as those produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna that are used abroad, as well as in the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau. Vaccination rates among elderly people are also much lower than the population at large, with only around half of those over 80 fully vaccinated.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#shangai#sante#confinement#isolement#zerocovid#vaccination#restrictionsanitaire#hongkong#macau

  • Shanghai lockdown: some parents allowed to stay with Covid-positive children after backlash | China | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/07/shanghai-lockdown-some-parents-allowed-to-stay-with-covid-positive-chil
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/afcacc667f64f6e84fb3a4e5381b268dd005f536/0_171_3851_2310/master/3851.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

    Shanghai lockdown: some parents allowed to stay with Covid-positive children after backlash
    Sanitation workers wearing PPE conduct disinfection work in Shanghai.
    Shanghai is allowing some parents to stay with their Covid-infected children during lockdown after a public backlash. Photograph: VCG/Getty Images
    Associated Press
    Shanghai is allowing at least some parents to stay with children infected with Covid-19, making an exception to a policy of isolating anyone who tests positive after a public outcry.The announcement came as China’s largest city remained in lockdown and conducted more mass testing on Wednesday following another jump in new cases.A top city health official said at a news conference that parents could apply to stay with children with “special needs” and accompany them if they fully comprehend the health risks and sign an agreement.
    The parents must wear masks, dine at a different time than their children, avoid sharing items with them and strictly follow all regulations, said Wu Qianyu of the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission. She did not define what qualified as “special needs.”Her announcement followed Chinese state media reports a day earlier that an isolation site set up at the Shanghai New International Expo Center was accepting children with parents. The city has opened sprawling isolation centres for tens of thousands of people to isolate the growing number of positive cases.Reports that parents were being separated from their infected children had sparked a wave of protest online last weekend, fuelled by photos showing several children in cots at a quarantine site with no parents in sight.Footage of a pet corgi being beaten to death on the streets of Shanghai over fears it may have the virus has also sparked outrage and frustration with China’s zero-Covid policy.
    “There is no humanity, and while the whole world is living a normal and orderly life, there are still ‘volunteers’ who have lost their humanity. Happening in China in 2022. Very sad,” one person wrote on Weibo.Last November, the death of another corgi – killed in its apartment while its owner was serving mandatory hotel quarantine in Jiangxi province – sparked a similar outcry.Shanghai reported 17,077 new cases detected over the previous day, all but 311 of them in people who showed no symptoms. Under China’s zero-Covid approach, the city requires all those who test positive to be held in designated locations for observation, along with their close contacts.The latest cases bring Shanghai’s total to about 90,000 in an outbreak that began last month. No deaths have been ascribed to the outbreak driven by the Omicron BA.2 variant, which is much more infectious but also less lethal than the previous Delta strain. Two deaths have been reported in another ongoing outbreak in Jilin province in China’s northeast.
    An official from the EU Chamber of Commerce in China joined a growing chorus of criticism of the Shanghai lockdown, which has disrupted daily life and commerce in a major financial and business centre.
    “Another really big fear is ending up in one of those mass central quarantine sites,” Schoen-Behanzin said in an online event for member companies and journalists.Others complained earlier about shortages of medical workers, volunteers and beds in the isolation wards. More than 38,000 health workers from 15 provinces have been sent to Shanghai to help with mass testing and other needs.Beijing is also tightening measures after 11 cases were detected in the Chinese capital in recent days. Authorities closed down a shopping and office centre in the busy Wangjing district and are requiring those arriving in the city to report to their place of work or residence within 12 hours and undergo a Covid-19 test within 72 hours. They must undergo another test within 48 hours of returning to their place of work.Despite growing public frustration and concerns about the economic effects, China says it is sticking to its hard-line “zero-tolerance” approach mandating lockdowns, mass testing and the compulsory isolation of all suspected cases and close contacts. While China’s vaccination rate hovers about 90%, its domestically produced inactivated virus vaccines are seen as weaker than the mRNA vaccines such as those produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna that are used abroad, as well as in the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau. Vaccination rates among elderly people are also much lower than the population at large, with only around half of those over 80 fully vaccinated.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#shangai#sante#confinement#isolement#zerocovid#vaccination#restrictionsanitaire#hongkong#macau

  • Coronavirus Hong Kong: use mainland Chinese help well, plan for next stage of battle and ensure social stability, top Beijing official tells local government | South China Morning Post
    https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3170759/coronavirus-hong-kong-use-mainland-chinese-help

    Coronavirus Hong Kong: use mainland Chinese help well, plan for next stage of battle and ensure social stability, top Beijing official tells local governmentHong Kong and Macau Affairs Office director Xia Baolong says city still facing uphill battle against pandemic. At high-level meeting in Shenzhen, he calls on local administration to plan for next phase of crisis, with focus on ‘three reductions’, referring to infections, severe cases and deaths
    Hong Kong’s government should distribute aid from the central government properly and plan for the next stage of the Covid-19 pandemic in an orderly way, a top Beijing official has told a high-level meeting in Shenzhen on the health crisis facing the financial hub. Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) director Xia Baolong also emphasised the need for local officials to safeguard social stability, according to the Hong Kong China News Agency. He was chairing the meeting on Wednesday after flying back to Shenzhen from the capital where he attended the annual “two sessions” of the nation’s parliament and top advisory body.Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of semi-official Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies think tank, said Beijing believed reforms were needed after the pandemic was under control, such as improving the government’s managerial abilities and the leadership capabilities of the executive branch.It was the ninth meeting of the tripartite coordination task force, involving Hong Kong and mainland officials, and the second in less than a week, with the last one taking place on March 11.Xia said in the latest meeting that the current epidemic situation in the city was still serious and the fight against the virus has remained an uphill battle.
    During the meeting, he also spoke via video link with teams sent to assist Hong Kong and called on the local government to speed up the distribution of Chinese medicine, boost the occupancy rate of isolation facilities and make good use of the medical professionals sent from the mainland.
    Xia went on to instruct the local administration to plan ahead for the next phase of the outbreak, focusing on the strategy of “three reductions, three focuses and one priority”.The first element refers to reducing infections, severe cases and deaths. The second involves three specific areas of focus: boosting vaccinations among the elderly and enforcing closed-loop staffing arrangements in care homes; strengthening the work of clinics, hospitals and isolation facilities; and identifying high-risk premises for children, seniors and the disabled, and stepping up protections there.
    Think tank vice-president Lau said Xia’s remarks not only focused on offering guidance and supervision, but also showed that Beijing would hold Hong Kong’s government accountable for failing to control the epidemic.
    “There is a need for improvement of our health care system and formulating contingency plans within the government on how to deal with such kinds of crisis.”Central authorities would look at improving the local government’s managerial abilities and its executive role, Lau said, adding the city needed to “prepare well for any upcoming sixth or seventh waves”.
    Lau suggested it was very rare that Beijing had to be so “hands-on” on Hong Kong’s issues, calling it proof that the city government’s poor handling of the outbreak had already greatly affected national interests.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#macau#hongkong#pekin#sante#zerocovid#politique#retsrictionsanitaire#shenzen#pandemie

  • Border reopening delayed as HK hit by Omicron - Asia Times
    https://asiatimes.com/2022/01/border-reopening-delayed-as-hk-hit-by-omicron

    Border reopening delayed as HK hit by Omicron
    Hong Kong’s long-awaited resumption of quarantine-free travel, or the so-called “border reopening,” with the mainland is no closer as the special administrative region has been hit by the Omicron variant.(...) The Hong Kong government has imposed some of the world’s toughest quarantine and social-distancing rules since early last year in an effort to convince Beijing to allow an early “border reopening.” Initially, the aim was to allow about 1,000 people per day to travel across the Hong Kong-mainland border without quarantine. Since July 2020, Guangdong has allowed quarantine-free travel at its border with Macau.Originally, the Hong Kong-mainland border should have been “reopened” in late December, but it was delayed due to virus outbreaks at a Hong Kong restaurant.
    On December 27, a Cathay Pacific aircrew worker, who was exempted from Hong Kong’s 21-day quarantine requirements, visited the Moon Palace restaurant at the Festival Walk mall with his father after returning from the United States. He later tested positive for the Omicron strain.The man’s father, together with a construction worker who had been sitting about 10 meters away, were later found to be infected. As of Monday, a total of six people have been found to be infected in this outbreak. The Centre for Health Protection said about 340 people had been sent to the Penny’s Bay Quarantine Centre, where they will stay for at least 21 days. Up to 22 staff from the Moon Palace restaurant said in a post on social media that it was unfair that they and their families had to be isolated for three weeks, while Cathay Pacific did not require its aircrew staff to stay at home after arrival.
    On Saturday, Cathay Pacific said it was deeply disappointed by the fact that two of its five aircrew workers, who had recently been infected with the Omicron variant, violated the company’s isolation guidelines. It said the duo had been sacked. Michael Tien, a Roundtable lawmaker, said both Cathay Pacific and the government should be blamed for the Omicron outbreak at the Moon Palace restaurant as it was risky for newly-arrived aircrew staff to be able to walk freely on the streets. Tien said it was unlikely that the Shenzhen government would give the green light to the proposed “border reopening” with Hong Kong in the short term as it had warned about the potential risk of having incoming aircrew staff exempted from quarantine.

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

  • HK-China border reopening hangs on Omicron’s spread - Asia Times
    https://asiatimes.com/2021/12/hk-china-border-reopening-hangs-on-omicrons-spread

    HK-China border reopening hangs on Omicron’s spread
    Analysts predict HK retail prices and rents will surge when borders are opened but Omicron fears are casting doubts on the plan
    by Jeff Pao December 6, 2021
    HONG KONG – Quarantine-free travel between Hong Kong and Macau and mainland China is expected to be implemented around Christmas, an opening that promises to boost Hong Kong’s retail and property sectors and revive cross-border business.On Friday, the Hong Kong government will allow people to download a health code that is compatible with those of Macau and the mainland so they can cross the border with a full location record.It is still discussing with the Guangdong provincial government about a “circuit breaker,” hoping that quarantine-free travel will be suspended only if two clusters of local infections are reported.
    Last month, health officials and experts expected the so-called border reopening would start in early December. However, Beijing changed its mind as it did not want to cause any disruption to Hong Kong’s Legislative Council elections on December 19 and activities related to the 22nd anniversary of the Macau Special Administrative Region on December 20.
    Property experts said if quarantine-free travel is not affected by the emergence of the Omicron strain of Covid-19, then prices and rents of Hong Kong’s retail shops could rebound in the short-term by as much as 30% and 60%.Manufacturers have said they would expand their retail businesses after the Hong Kong-mainland border was fully reopened, hopefully after the Chinese New Year in February.Since virus outbreaks in Wuhan were made public in late January 2020, people traveling across the border of Hong Kong and the mainland have been required to follow strict quarantine measures.People must be isolated for 14 days when they enter the mainland, although Hong Kong residents and mainlanders can enter Hong Kong from the mainland without quarantine via the Return2HK and Come2HK schemes. Last week, the Hong Kong government put four South African countries and 12 other countries on its high-risk list due to the growing number of Omicron cases around the world.On December 1, it announced that a 38-year-old man who arrived in Hong Kong from Qatar on November 24 was stuck in the restricted transit area at Hong Kong International Airport for four days due to a visa-related issue and tested positive with Omicron in a pre-departure test on November 28.
    David Hui, a professor of respiratory medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a government advisor on the pandemic, said on Sunday the border reopening schedule would not be affected by the four imported Omicron cases reported in Hong Kong.Hui said as it took four months to fully reopen the Macau-mainland border, Hong Kong should only expect a full border-reopening after February.
    The South China Morning Post reported on November 18 that a trial scheme for people to travel from Hong Kong to the mainland without quarantine would be launched in the first week of December.However, Beijing later decided to postpone the launch to late December to avoid causing any virus outbreaks that would disrupt the LegCo elections on December 19, HK01.com reported on December 3, citing officials familiar with the situation.A small-scale border-reopening scheme with a daily quota of 1,000 people would kick off before Christmas, Hong Kong media reported on Monday. The quota would then increase to 5,000 by next February.
    Although the Guangdong government has said it would prefer to suspend the scheme whenever a local case is identified, the Hong Kong government suggested that the scheme be suspended only if two clusters of patients were identified.Last Friday, the Hong Kong government said the “Hong Kong Health Code” system would be open for registration from 9am on December 10. It said people could register an account and familiarize themselves with its functions earlier, with a view to facilitating a smoother operation when quarantine-free travel with the mainland and Macau officially resumes.
    Applicants for the health code are required to register personal information such as name, identity document number and date of issue, contact telephone number and residential address and upload Hong Kong residential address proof. The information would be shared with the mainland only if the code’s user tested positive, said the government.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#chine#macau#afriquedusud#frontiere#circulation#omicron#codesante#cluster#quota

  • 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

    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

  • 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

    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

  • Coronavirus: Beijing tells Hong Kong to strengthen quarantine, testing policies to secure border reopening | South China Morning Post
    https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3150331/coronavirus-beijing-tells-hong-kong-strengthen

    Coronavirus: Beijing tells Hong Kong to strengthen quarantine, testing policies to secure border reopening.
    Hong Kong must strengthen coronavirus controls in areas such as testing and quarantine before the border with mainland China can reopen, the city’s deputy leader has said after meeting Beijing officials. Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu said on Monday that both sides were positive about the prospect of reviving cross-border travel during “constructive” talks in Shenzhen over the weekend. He identified three areas of improvement in Hong Kong’s anti-pandemic strategy to pave the way for further discussions, covering screening requirements for inbound travellers, the quarantine system and the city’s overall approach to risk. But Lee said the mainland officials had not set any preconditions for relaxing travel restrictions, which Hong Kong authorities have made a priority for boosting the economy. More than 20 representatives from the mainland and Hong Kong attended Sunday’s meeting, hosted by Huang Liuquan, a deputy director of the State Council’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. “The mainland experts understand that Hong Kong has its own [anti-pandemic] measures, and they acknowledge that Hong Kong has yielded a certain result,” Lee told the press.Hopes in Hong Kong for border reopening, but ‘it’s unlikely before March’ “Our focus is to build a strong foundation to increase the mainland’s confidence in Hong Kong, and understand that Hong Kong will not bring extra health and safety risks to other places.”
    Lee did not directly answer questions on whether a date for a border reopening had been set, or if that could be achieved by the end of the year.
    “The process takes time, but I believe that the border could reopen in a gradual manner, as both sides demonstrated a positive attitude,” he said. “We will be proactive and push it forward as fast as we can.” He added local officials would submit a report on the meeting to Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and strive to hold a second meeting with the mainland “as soon as possible”. Those in attendance included representatives from the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong, and the Guangdong and Shenzhen administrations, as well as Secretary for Food and Health Professor Sophia Chan Siu-chee and Secretary for Innovation and Technology Alfred Sit Wing-hang. After the meeting, a source told the Post that “some things are missing” from the Hong Kong approach, adding that lessons would be learned from Macau’s experiences.
    Macau had over the past year largely brought the coronavirus under control, but recently recorded a spike in local cases, as have parts of the mainland.
    Hong Kong last confirmed a local Covid-19 case with an unknown source of infection on August 17, involving a 47-year-old airport worker. Health officials believe she probably contracted the virus at the transport hub rather than in the community. The city’s border controls are some of the world’s toughest, with inbound travellers required to quarantine for up to 21 days at designated hotels and undergo mandatory testing both during and after isolation.Hongkongers on the mainland and in Macau can return to the city without serving quarantine under the “Return2HK scheme” if they test negative for Covid-19. A “Come2HK scheme” allows non-Hong Kong residents in Guangdong province and Macau – including mainlanders and expatriates – to travel to the city without quarantining. But the arrangements are not reciprocal at this stage.Macau resumed quarantine-free travel with the neighbouring mainland city of Zhuhai in May last year, following the mutual recognition of a risk-based health code system that takes into account an individual’s condition, contact with Covid-19 patients and travel history.Carrie Lam lobbies Beijing for border reopening, seeks medical expert dialogueTravellers must also provide a negative coronavirus test taken no more than seven days before departure. Respiratory medicine expert Dr Leung Chi-chiu noted a recent uptick of imported infections in Hong Kong and urged the government to further tighten restrictions on travellers. He added a new strategy should be developed on eliminating cases within a month of an outbreak.“Hong Kong has no concrete plan on how to quickly cut off the spread of Covid-19 if there’s a community case. The strategy of simply tightening social-distancing measures and quarantining close contacts is outdated in the wake of more infectious variants,” he said.Leung acknowledged that locking down entire districts for mandatory testing would be difficult in Hong Kong but suggested ramping up regular screening instead – particularly for staff in high-risk places such as the airport and quarantine hotels – to two times per week.That should also apply to those who were fully vaccinated, to snuff out the contagion risks posed by asymptomatic carriers, he added.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#chine#hongkong#macau#circulation#frontiere#sante#test#vaccination#variant#reciprocite

  • Coronavirus: Wednesday relaunch of quarantine-free ‘Return2HK’ scheme for Hongkongers, doors open to others from mainland 1 week later | South China Morning Post
    https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3147811/coronavirus-quarantine-free-return2hk-scheme-hong

    Coronavirus: Wednesday relaunch of quarantine-free ‘Return2HK’ scheme for Hongkongers, doors open to others from mainland 1 week later
    Return of programme for residents will see six medium or high-risk areas excluded, with ‘Come2HK’ scheme for non-residents on September 15
    Hong Kong residents will soon be able to cross the border from mainland China without quarantine under the relaunched ‘Return2HK’ scheme.
    Quarantine free travel from mainland China and Macau to Hong Kong will resume on Wednesday for city residents, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has revealed, with the programme set to expand to non-residents a week later.
    The “Return2HK” scheme – first launched in November for Guangdong province and Macau, then expanded to the rest of the mainland in April – exempts returning Hongkongers who have passed a Covid-19
    test at least 72 hours before arrival.But when the programme relaunches on Wednesday, six areas currently considered medium or high-risk for Covid-19 will be excluded. Further details about those areas are expected to be announced later today.The plan, which sets a daily quota of 5,000 residents, was suspended last month for Macau and mainland provinces other than neighbouring Guangdong in a bid to prevent a Covid-19 outbreak across the border from spreading into the city.The decision meant most returning residents needed to spend 14 days in isolation at home and submit to five rounds of testing. “Since last November when the Return2HK scheme was launched, more or less 200,000 residents have returned, but not a single case of infection was found. So we can proceed with this plan without worries,” Lam told reporters ahead of her weekly Executive Council meeting.Additionally, Lam announced that a separate scheme, dubbed “Come2HK”, would finally be launched on September 15, enabling non-residents – including mainlanders and expatriates living across the border – to come to the city without undergoing compulsory quarantine.The plan will initially be capped at 2,000 people per day.On Tuesday, Hong Kong confirmed six new imported Covid-19 cases from Britain, the Philippines, Tanzania and the United States. They all carried the L452R mutation, which has been linked to several coronavirus variants, including the Delta one.
    All but one had been fully vaccinated. The remaining person had received one dose of vaccine. There were fewer than five preliminary-positive infections reported.Lam said the last locally transmitted Covid-19 case was on August 17, which was 21 days ago, an important milestone because it reflected the virus’ incubation period.
    Tourism sector lawmaker Yiu Si-wing said the two schemes were a step in the right direction, but doubted it would boost cross-border traffic significantly.“It signals that mainland Chinese authorities are willing to test the waters and allow people to enter or return to Hong Kong,” Yiu said. “But there’s still a long way to go before they allow travel to return to normal levels.“Cross-border travel has been stalled for a long time, even though both Hong Kong and the mainland have had stable coronavirus conditions, so we can expect business travellers and those with family or health matters to return to the city first.”Yiu added that the long-awaited “Come2HK” scheme was like a “tester” to see if there was sufficient demand among travellers from the rest of the mainland to come to the city. “Both schemes are not reciprocal, Hong Kong residents would still have to quarantine if they cross over, indicating that mainland China is still not ready to fully reopen its borders yet,” he said.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#chine#macau#sante#quarantaine#test#frontiere#circulation#expatrie#retour#reciprocite

  • HK border reopening hopes fade with new outbreaks - Asia Times
    https://asiatimes.com/2021/08/hk-border-reopening-hopes-fade-with-new-outbreaks

    HK border reopening hopes fade with new outbreaks
    Hong Kong is pushing to reopen its border with Macau and the mainland but new virus outbreaks could scupper the plans. Hong Kong’s retail and tourism sectors have become pessimistic about the resumption of quarantine-free travel across the territory’s borders with Macau and the mainland by October after new outbreaks were reported in the region.
    The Macau government said Tuesday it received notification from Zhuhai authorities that samples they collected from two Macau residents had tested positive. The couple’s son and daughter were then identified as infected.
    Macau’s health authorities said the four were infected with the more infectious Delta variant. They said it was likely that the daughter, who joined a dancing trip with 30 people to fly from Zhuhai to Xi’an in Shaanxi province between July 19 and 24, was the first infected person in the cluster. Her brother and parents later showed symptoms of the illness.
    It was said that the plane taken by the daughter on July 19 had arrived from Nanjing to Zhuhai earlier on the same day. Two passengers flying from Nanjing to Zhuhai on that plane previously tested positive.Due to the outbreaks, the Macau government declared a state of “immediate prevention” from 3:30pm on Tuesday and ordered Covid tests for the gaming city of 680,000 people. People must provide a negative Covid test result done within 12 hours if they want to leave the city. The latest outbreak also sparked panic buying in supermarkets as Macau has not seen a local case for more than 400 days.Macau Chief Executive Ho Iat-seng said it was not necessary to shut down casinos for the moment as it was likely that the infected daughter contracted the virus on the July 19 flight. Ho said the girl sat on the same seat where two patients from Nanjing had occupied.
    The Hong Kong government also announced that from August 4, anyone who had been in Macau over the past 14 days could not return to the city under the Return2hk scheme, which allows Hong Kong residents quarantine-free entry upon returning to the territory if they test negative for the virus.A 13-year-old Hong Kong girl and her family are being sent to a quarantine camp as she stayed in the same room with the Macau girl during the dancing trip last month.
    Separately, a 43-year-old construction worker, who lived in Sham Shui Po in Kowloon, tested positive preliminarily on Tuesday. However, his sample tested negative for the coronavirus on Wednesday but positive for the Covid-19 antibodies, showing that he might have recovered from a previous infection.Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Centre for Health Protection’s Communicable Disease Branch, said Wednesday the man was probably a “re-positive” case, but authorities had not been able to find out the exact time of his infection yet.“The man has been undergoing regular testing, his regular testing started from May – although he had one or two tests at the end of March – so one of the possibilities is that he had an infection quite early on, maybe before May or March,” Chuang said.If the man has been infected recently through an unknown source, his case would have broken a 56-day streak of zero new untraceable local infections in Hong Kong.
    Since the second quarter of last year, Macau and the mainland have adopted a “zero infections” strategy by implementing tough anti-epidemic measures. As the two places successfully controlled their epidemic situations, they have resumed quarantine-free travel since last September.
    Last year, the Hong Kong government tried to maintain local infections at low level and avoided launching severe measures such as citywide tests and large-scale lockdowns. However, such strategy failed to prevent the city from being hit by the fourth epidemic wave between last November and January this year.Since then, the government has locked down infected areas, tightened quarantine measures and banned flights coming from high-risk countries to stay in line with Beijing’s “zero infections” strategy.
    Yiu Si-wing, a lawmaker representing the tourism sector, said his sector had previously expected that Hong Kong could reopen its border with Macau and the mainland by October but such hope seemed to have vanished due to the recent outbreaks in the latter two places. Yiu said the previously scheduled travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore had burst twice and would probably be unable to resume in the coming few months.
    He said among the 1,600 travel agencies in Hong Kong, only 100 to 200 were organising “cruise-to-nowhere” trips while 400 were running local tours. He said a majority of travel agencies were having no income while some of them might go bankrupt if the border between Hong Kong and the mainland could not reopen this year.Yip Kin-ming, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and a director of the China Economic and Social Council, said the chance that the Hong Kong-mainland border could reopen in short term had become slim after the Delta variant was spread from Nanjing to a dozen of Chinese provinces in late July.
    However, Yip said the two places should continue to push forward the discussion about whether vaccinated people could be allowed to travel across the border with shorter quarantine periods. Health authorities in China on Wednesday reported 71 domestic cases, the highest since January. The country is fighting against the Delta variant by launching citywide tests and locking down millions.Infectious disease expert Leung Chi-chiu said it was right for Hong Kong to quickly remove Macau from the “Return2hk” scheme, so that from now on people who return from Macau would need to undergo home quarantine. Leung said if the situation became worse, returnees from Macau should be quarantined in hotels instead.
    “The Macau case does illustrate the fragility of a bubble with the mainland,” Benjamin Cowling, an epidemiologist from the University of Hong Kong, told RTHK. “I know that’s what we are going for. If we can maintain zero Covid for a period of time, if we can get the vaccine coverage up to a higher level, then we have the opportunity to establish a bubble with the mainland with free travel in both directions.” On Tuesday, the Hong Kong government launched several new measures to help boost the city’s vaccination rate. It said Hong Kong would have 70% of its population vaccinated with their first dose by the end of September.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#chine#macau#sante#circulation#depistage#frontiere#confinement#quarantaine#bullesanitaire#vaccination#variant

  • Coronavirus: Hong Kong officials investigating quarantine hotel over cleaner’s variant infection as city logs 11 cases | South China Morning Post
    https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3139554/coronavirus-hong-kong-officials-launch-probe

    Coronavirus: Hong Kong officials investigating quarantine hotel over cleaner’s variant infection as city logs 11 cases. Investigators scrambling to avoid a feared community spread of a more infectious Covid-19 strain. Ten imported cases recorded, the most in a single day since April 29, with eight involving arrivals from BritainOfficials are focusing their efforts on Bridal Tea House Hotel in Yau Ma Tei as part of their investigations into a cleaner’s variant infection.
    Officials are focusing their efforts on Bridal Tea House Hotel in Yau Ma Tei as part of their investigations into a cleaner’s variant infection. Photo: Google Map. Hong Kong health officials visited a quarantine hotel on Friday to investigate whether the case of a cleaner who tested positive for a Covid-19 variant involved environmental contamination or screening errors.
    The probe into the case involving a more infectious variant emerged as a medical expert urged all employees of designated quarantine hotels to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. The cleaner was classified as a local untraceable case and was among 11 new infections announced by health authorities. The remaining 10 were all imported, the most in a single day since April 29. Eight of the infections involved arrivals from Britain, one from Indonesia and another from RussiaThe city’s tally of confirmed cases stands at 11,938, with 211 related deaths.
    Authorities said the 41-year-old woman – who worked part time as a cleaner at Bridal Tea House Hotel in Yau Ma Tei – earlier tested negative for both the coronavirus and antibodies against the virus at hospital, raising the possibility she had not been infected.Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch at the Centre for Health Protection, said the worker on Wednesday cleaned the room of someone also found with the L452R mutant strain. Later that day she was swabbed under regular testing in place for hotel employees.Chuang said that investigation at the Yau Ma Tei hotel involved the centre and government pandemic adviser Professor Yuen Kwok-yung.The patient, who tested preliminary-positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, has no recent travel history.
    The woman also worked part time as a cleaner at Bluejay Residences in Ap Lei Chau and at House 2, 12A South Bay Road in Repulse Bay.
    Hung, co-convenor of the Expert Committee on Clinical Events Assessment Following Covid-19 Immunisation, said tracing the source of the infection was important but also expressed his faith in the anti-epidemic measures in hotels designated for quarantine.“But the most important thing is hotel staff should all get vaccinated as soon as possible because they can only get very good protection through the injection, particularly when we talk about the variants,” he told a radio show.
    A 47-year-old foreign domestic helper who arrived from Indonesia and underwent her quarantine in the Bridal Tea House Hotel was among the Covid-19 cases confirmed on Monday.The woman from Indonesia developed symptoms on June 26 and was found with the same L452R mutant strain.The latest development has complicated the city’s plans to relaunch quarantine-free travel with Macau, as the health authority in the casino city said on Thursday the border with Hong Kong could only reopen if the international finance hub had not recorded any local coronavirus infections or import-linked cases for 14 days. The last time Hong Kong recorded a community case was on June 7.The new criteria represents a change from last month when Macau authorities said Hong Kong visitors could be exempted from quarantine if the city achieved 28 straight days of zero local infections, which means a complete absence of untraceable community cases.Andy Wu Keng-kuong, president of the Travel Industry Council of Macau, said the new case, if confirmed, might introduce uncertainty to the planned reopening of the border, but added it would depend on how experts later classified the case.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#macau#sante#casimporte#variant#vaccination#quarantaine#hotel#financehub#tourisme

  • Coronavirus: quarantine-free travel between Hong Kong and Macau could resume this month, but plan limits access to hotel facilities in casino city | South China Morning Post
    https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3139424/coronavirus-quarantine-free-travel-between-hong

    Coronavirus: quarantine-free travel between Hong Kong and Macau could resume this month, but plan limits access to hotel facilities in casino city
    Two governments close to agreeing a deal to reopen the border, subject to conditions such as a swimming pool ban in Macau hotels. But Macau raises threshold, with Hong Kong required to reach 14 days without either local infections or community ones linked to imported cases
    Macau could open up again to Hong Kong tourists in July, but a proposal to do so involves facilities restrictions in hotels. Vaccinated Hong Kong residents will be allowed to visit Macau without undergoing mandatory quarantine as early as this month under a plan that limits visitor access to hotel facilities and mask-free activities such as visiting bars, the Post has learned.But shortly after the plan was revealed on Thursday, the Macau government ramped up its requirements. It raised the threshold for resumption of travel, with Hong Kong required to reach 14 days without either local coronavirus infections or community ones linked to imported cases. Previously, the requirement was for no untraceable cases for 28 days.
    A Hong Kong source with direct knowledge of discussions earlier on Thursday said both governments were finalising arrangements to reopen the border and allow quarantine-free travel, subject to conditions such as compulsory Covid-19 vaccination, accommodation restrictions and initial passenger quotas.
    “Both sides are eager to resume travel, and at this moment, it seems reopening the border with Macau will come sooner than with Guangdong province where more factors have to be taken into consideration,” the government insider said. “Of course, the prerequisite is that we must have a stable pandemic situation.”In a letter to hotels in the casino city seen by the Post, the Macau Government Tourism Office said the plan was for Hong Kong arrivals to carry a specific health code and operators could welcome such guests provided they placed them on designated floors.But the visitors would be banned from hotel swimming pools and other facilities involving water-based activities, the office added.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#macau#sante#crirculation#frontiere#quarantaine#vaccination#tourisme

  • Hong Kong pushes health code to open up travel - Asia Times
    https://asiatimes.com/2020/10/hong-kong-pushes-health-code-to-open-up-travel

    The Hong Kong government is pushing hard for the launch of a health code system that will let people travel in the Greater Bay Area without being quarantined. Chief Executive Carrie Lam told local newspapers she had explained to the central government that it was hard for Hong Kong to have zero local cases though the city had been successful in identifying imported cases. Whenever Hong Kong managed to control its epidemic, it could reopen its border with mainland China under certain conditions, which include the launch of a health code system, the use of negative test certificates and a cap on the number of travellers, Lam said.
    If Hong Kong could reopen its border with Guangdong, it would not be far to resume travel between the territory and Macau, she said, adding that she was closely monitoring the number of local infections every day.According to the mainland’s standard, a low-risk region refers to a province or city that has not recorded any local case for 14 consecutive days. A single case can make a place become a medium-risk region. The Center for Health Protection said Monday that a total of 15 cases were recorded, including 14 imported cases and one local infection, within the 24 hours on Sunday. The local case could be linked to previous cases. It was the third day Hong Kong has recorded no local infection with no known source. Between Friday and Saturday, 21 cases were identified, comprising 19 imported cases and two local cases with known sources.
    Three in four Hong Kong people hoped that they could be allowed to visit Macau and mainland China freely with a health code system as early as possible, according to a survey conducted by Youth Vision, a pro-Beijing activist group, which interviewed 1,780 people between October 8 and 12 over the Internet.Ben Chan, an advisor of Youth Vision and a lawmaker of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, said people who had to travel between Hong Kong and mainland due to medical or family reasons had been seriously affected by the border closure this year. Chan urged the Hong Kong government to speed up its discussions with the central government about the launch of a health code system for the Greater Bay Area region. Chan also said it would be more urgent to reopen Hong Kong’s border with Macau, rather than forming a “travel bubble” with Singapore, as many Hong Kong people’s relatives were living in the nearby special administrative region.According to the Hong Kong Tourism Board, the number of visitors to Hong Kong amounted to 9,132 in September, down 99.7% from the same period last year. Last week, the Hong Kong government announced that Singapore and the territory had agreed to set up an “air travel bubble” that would allow people to travel between the two places with negative test certificates. Meanwhile, Sophia Chan, the Secretary for Food and Health, said in a radio program on Sunday that the government was seeking legal advice about requiring those who have mild illness symptoms to have mandatory virus tests.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#singapour#chine#macau#frontiere#sante#circulation#bullevoyage#codesante#casimporte

  • HK to launch health code system for travelers - Asia Times
    https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/hk-to-launch-health-code-system-for-travelers

    The Hong Kong government will soon launch a health code system that will allow people to travel between Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong province in China without being quarantined for 14-days, according to local media.The government will first assign eight hospitals and labs to handle coronavirus tests for those who want to travel to Macau and Guangdong, Hong Kong media reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources.
    Each test will cost about HK$1,500 (US$194). Anyone who tests negative will be given a health QR code, which will be valid for seven days. It is expected that major users of this health code system will be business travelers, who can afford to pay for the test

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#macau#chine#test#sante#voyageur#systemecodesante

  • New HK cluster extends social distancing rules - Asia Times
    https://asiatimes.com/2020/06/new-hk-cluster-extends-social-distancing-rules

    The 14-day home quarantine requirements for people arriving from the mainland, Macau and Taiwan, which were to expire on June 7, have also been extended by one month to July 7, according to the Compulsory Quarantine of Certain Persons Arriving at Hong Kong Regulation. Those who travel between China’s Guangdong province and Hong Kong will be exempt from the requirements. Meanwhile, the 14-day home quarantine requirements for people arriving from places other than the mainland, Macau and Taiwan, which were to expire on June 18, have been extended to September 18.

    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#HongKong#Macau#Chine#Taiwan#mesures-sanitaires#contamination#santé#quarantaine

  • Obstacles to Excellence: Academic Freedom & China’s Quest for World Class Universities

    Obstacles to Excellence is a new report from Scholars at Risk mapping threats to academic freedom that jeopardize China’s higher education ambitions.

    “For decades now, the Chinese government has invested heavily in academic institutions and programs designed to compete with the world’s finest,” says SAR executive director Robert Quinn. “This positive ambition is undermined, however, by state policies and practices that fail to protect academic freedom. This poses grave personal and professional risks for Chinese scholars and students,” as documented in the report, “and serious academic, reputational, and financial risks for foreign academic institutions with partnerships with Chinese counterparts, in China or abroad.”

    Drawing on academic literature, legislative and regulatory texts, media, human rights reports, interviews with Chinese and foreign experts, and data from SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project, Obstacles to Excellence identifies pressures and threats to academic freedom in China and where China has extraterritorial academic connections, including:

    Systematic and targeted tactics employed by state and university authorities in mainland China to constrict academic activity and to intimidate, silence, and punish outspoken academics and students;
    Heightened pressures on scholars and students in the Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Regions including language policies that limit equitable access to higher education, heightened surveillance, and the imprisonment of a growing number of minority scholars and students at so-called “re-education camps;”
    Erosion of university autonomy in Hong Kong and Macau under Beijing’s growing influence over China’s Special Administrative Regions;
    Academic freedom and autonomy challenges facing foreign higher education institutions operating joint ventures with Chinese universities on the mainland;
    Extra-territorial pressures by the Chinese Party-state and supporters, through Confucius Institutes and other activities, to restrict academic inquiry and expression at universities outside China; and
    Vague, unsubstantiated, and overbroad foreign government rhetoric and policies that impede academic inquiry and risk stigmatizing innocent overseas Chinese academics and students.

    As noted in the report, a small but growing number of international universities have responded to academic freedom concerns by scaling back or terminating partnerships with institutions in mainland China and with China-supported institutes on their own campuses. Others have stayed out of the public dialogue. Obstacles to Excellence urges nuanced, public discussion of the issues, with the goal of identifying practices which recognize China’s legitimate higher education ambitions while fully protecting academic freedom.

    “Pressures on academic freedom in China mirror those we see around the world, as documented in our annual Free to Think reports,” says SAR’s advocacy director Clare Robinson. “But given the size of its higher education sector, and China’s important and growing position on the global academic stage, it is more important than ever to discuss the issues raised publicly and to work together to institutionalize policies and practices that safeguard academic freedom and recognize its central role in world-class universities and scholarship.”

    Obstacles to Excellence, available in English and simplified Chinese versions, invites readers to consider these important issues and to discuss them publicly, including at conferences, annual association meetings, and in international partnerships. It includes recommendations for Chinese state authorities, university leadership, and civil society in China aimed at strengthening understanding of and respect for academic freedom. It also urges state authorities, higher education leaders, and civil society outside of China to demonstrate their commitment to academic freedom by supporting at-risk Chinese scholars and students, wherever they may be, and by ensuring that their international partnerships—with Chinese and non-Chinese partners alike—respect academic freedom and other core university values.

    https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/resources/obstacles-to-excellence-academic-freedom-chinas-quest-for-world-clas
    #liberté_académique #Chine #université #rapport #scholars_at_risk #éducation #Tibet #Mongolie #Xinjiang_Uyghur #Macau #Hong_Kong #Confucius_Institutes

    Ce mot d’#excellence qui me dérange beaucoup...

  • Is #Taiwan a Country? What About #Tibet? China Says They Aren’t—and Wants Foreign Companies to Fall in Line · Global Voices
    https://globalvoices.org/2018/01/17/is-taiwan-a-country-what-about-tibet-china-says-they-arent-and-wants-f

    Despite what people may say, #Hong_Kong (#Hongkong), #Macau, Taiwan and Tibet are not countries. At least not in the eyes of mainland China.

    This week, a smattering of multinational corporations publicly apologized for listing Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Tibet as countries on their websites, at the behest of Chinese authorities.

    The wave of apologies from JW Marriott Hotels, Zara, Delta Airlines and Medtronic, among others, was sparked by a January 9 email questionnaire sent by Marriott to its Chinese members, in which the four territories were listed separately from China in one of the questions about residence.

    #chine #territoires #différends_frontaliers #frontières