Over 10,000 hotel rooms can be used for isolation: CE

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said on Wednesday that she is optimistic that at least 10,000 hotel rooms can be converted into isolation facilities for Covid patients who have no or mild symptoms.

The government said in a press release that Lam conducted a virtual meeting with the executive director of the Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners, Michael Li, as well as a group of hotel owners.

The statement said it is “critically important” for the sector to play a role in helping to accommodate a rising number of Covid patients, adding that many hotels are willing to join the Community Isolation Facility (CIF) Hotel Scheme.

“While I expressed a wish to identify some 7,000 to 10,000 hotel rooms for the purpose of isolation, I am optimistic that, through the joint efforts by the government and hotel sector, at least 10,000 hotel rooms could be made available for the CIF Hotel Scheme,” Lam said.

The chief executive pointed out that the government had already secured about 4,400 rooms – some 1,700 of which will be made available before the end of this week and the remaining before the end of next week.

She stressed the government will provide infection-control training and make sure adequate medical support is in place at participating hotels.

“We are extremely grateful to the frontline hotel staff in supporting the operation of the hotel as an isolation facility, but where the participating hotel prefers the government team to take over the day-to-day activities like checking-in and out, allocation of rooms, cleansing and security, this is also acceptable in order to facilitate participation by more hotels,” Lam added.

She said Secretary for Security Chris Tang will oversee the operation of the participating hotels, and that some 1,000 retired disciplinary force members have been recruited to help.

Separately, the Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong said some of its members joined the virtual meeting with the chief executive and agreed to try their best to cooperate and support the government’s plan to provide more quarantine facilities.