Shorter quarantine planned for the fully vaccinated

Health Secretary Sophia Chan said on Tuesday that the government is planning to shorten the quarantine period for fully vaccinated people who fly back to Hong Kong.

Chan told lawmakers at a meeting of Legco’s health services panel that experts had agreed that it would be okay to reduce the current quarantine period for returnees who have been fully vaccinated, and authorities are now working on the arrangement.

Currently, anyone who enters Hong Kong from places outside mainland China, Macau and Taiwan have to be quarantined for 21 days – except those flying in from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, who only need to be quarantined for 14 days.

DAB lawmaker Ann Chiang had told the health chief there simply wasn’t enough incentive for Hongkongers to get vaccinated at the moment.

She urged the government to consider allowing vaccinated people to travel to low-risk areas, and letting them undergo a shorter quarantine period when they return to the city.

The lawmaker said she was also concerned that some residents in Beauty Mansion in Tsim Sha Tsui have been sent in to quarantine for 21 days despite having been fully vaccinated. They were quarantined after a woman who lives there tested preliminary positive with a mutant strain on Monday.

Chan told lawmakers that the government is looking into possibility of allowing fully vaccinated close contacts of any Covid patient to undergo a shorter quarantine period.

But she said authorities would have to take into account whether the case in question involves a mutant strain of Covid-19.

The health secretary said the government would announce further details when they have come up with an exact plan.