Top Hong Kong delegate says mainland China could cut quarantine for cross-border travellers to 4 days by year end

Tam Yiu-chung says there is a chance quarantine for cross-border travellers could be reduced given the relatively short incubation period for most subvariants

Meanwhile, Professor David Hui says city’s Covid situation could develop into one similar to Singapore’s, where imported variants have driven up infections

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Travellers line up for Covid-19 PCR tests at Shenzhen Bay Port in Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 12:47pm, 15 Oct 2022Updated: 8:46pm, 15 Oct 2022

Mainland China may cut the week-long quarantine imposed upon arrivals from Hong Kong to four days before the end of the year, the city’s sole delegate to the nation’s top legislative body has said, pointing to the average three days that most mutated strains of Covid-19 take to incubate.

Tam Yiu-chung, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, acknowledged on Saturday the intense speculation swirling over whether Beijing would relax measures that had choked off cross-border travel for more than two years after the Chinese Communist Party ended its twice-in-a-decade congress later this month.

“I think there is a chance,” said the pro-Beijing heavyweight from the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, the city’s biggest pro-establishment party. “If [the quarantine] can be brought down to four days, that will open up a lot of vacancies at quarantine hotels, at least by half.”

Tam Yiu-chung, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

A shorter quarantine would allow designated hotels to serve more travellers, which in turn would allow for an increase in the number of people crossing the border each day, he suggested.

Reducing the period to four days also made sense as the incubation period for most mutated strains was about three days, Tam said, while adding that any gradual resumption of cross-border travel depended on the number of infections in Hong Kong and the development of subvariants.

The daily cross-border quota is set by neighbouring Shenzhen, which currently allows 1,500 arrivals, who must isolate themselves in a hotel for seven days. But the rooms are handed out by lottery, and demand has long dwarfed supply.

In a bid to ease the pressure, the Hong Kong government is pushing for a “reverse quarantine” arrangement that will allow travellers to spend the required days in a hotel in the city before crossing the border.