Hong Kong’s backward zero-Covid policy threatens to kill all our hopes and dreams

There has to come a point where Hong Kong and Beijing accept that the coronavirus is here to stay and, like Australia and elsewhere, start to open up
Until that day, my plan to buy an apartment in Australia will just have to remain on hold

Peter Kammerer

Published: 6:45am, 19 Oct 2021

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It’s been 20 months since I last left Hong Kong. This is by far a record for me; having lived in the city for more than three decades before the pandemic, I was used to taking overseas trips three or four times a year.

I’m eager to travel again; I want to buy an apartment in Australia. But like most residents of Hong Kong, I’m grounded, as the city’s compulsory Covid-19 quarantine orders banish thoughts of any such journey.

Hongkongers are often cited among the world’s most frequent overseas travellers. About 77 per cent have passports, a figure beating Canada’s 67 per cent, Australia’s 57 per cent and the United States’ 43 per cent.

That is unsurprising, given that the city covers just 1,100 square kilometres, ensuring a dearth of domestic travel. Covid-19 has obviously changed that, but the eagerness of residents to head for the airport and go back to their sojourning ways is palpable.

Giving people immunity against the travel bug are those coronavirus restrictions. Currently, the government’s three-tier risk scale mandates seven-, 14- and 21-day compulsory hotel isolation periods depending on the country of departure.

Only New Zealand is at the lowest level of risk; popular destinations like Britain, France, Thailand and the United States are at the highest. Even mainland China is out of bounds: Hong Kong, with a single local infection in two months, is considered too much of a risk for the mainland to tolerate visits by Hong Kong residents.

06:05

As more countries ditch ‘zero-Covid’ policy, why is China opting to ‘wait and see’?

The inevitable result is that only those who have the time, financial means and will to endure being locked in a small room for one to three weeks, and to undergo frequent Covid-19 testing, will venture overseas.

Many places, unlike Hong Kong, have decided to move beyond the zero-tolerance attitude towards the coronavirus pandemic and opted to live with the virus. Some, like Singapore, are moving towards travel corridors with designated countries.

Even Australia, which was stuck on the idea of “zero Covid”, is lightening up. It will reopen its borders from next month, and citizens will be allowed to resume overseas travel. Presumably, vaccinated Australian passport holders like me will soon be allowed to visit without having to undergo 14 days of hotel quarantine.

The 14-day quarantine at each end of an Australian trip has been dampening my desire to buy an apartment there. I’m not brave enough to buy a flat off the plan or without being able to inspect it in person. I’ve also grown to like the idea of living in a multistorey building, a concept alien to most Australians.

For this reason, I can’t rely on friends there to do the searching for me; most can’t comprehend why anyone wouldn’t want a 2,500 sq ft, four- or more-bedroom home on a large plot of land with a garden.

Because I want convenience and I don’t drive, my ideal is a manageable 800 sq ft apartment on a high floor in a building that is near public transport and within walking distance of food shops and restaurants – in short, something similar to my home in Hong Kong.

Holding back people’s travel plans is obviously good for Hong Kong’s economy. Although the travel restrictions have hurt the city’s tourism industry, they ensure people spend locally, not internationally.

The retail and food and beverage sectors, which long bemoaned the absence of the tens of millions of mainland tourists who once inundated the streets and shops, are barely grumbling now. Staycations in local hotels are commonplace.

I’m certainly not complaining; as valuable as visitors are to the economy, saturation tourist numbers are annoying and unreasonable to endure. Sustainability is a more desirable goal.

That said, a point has to come where Hong Kong and Beijing accept that the coronavirus is here to stay. Isolation from the world is an economic step backwards, not to mention a Neanderthal tendency in a globalised world. The pandemic has changed much of our thinking; it shouldn’t also be allowed to kill our dreams and ambitions.

Peter Kammerer is a senior writer at the Post