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🌊Social Distancing Loosening!

www.hightide.harbourtimes.com

🌊Social Distancing Loosening!

"IT'S NOT A U-TURN" Carrie Lam probably

Harbour Times
Mar 22, 2022
∙ Paid
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🌊Social Distancing Loosening!

www.hightide.harbourtimes.com

Good afternoon,

Instead of having this read over breakfast, maybe today you’re reading it over lunch which is also pretty cool.

Is there a reason for this? No, not really.

My bad, here’s another cute squirrel. Hell take three.

🔥 cute squirrel family : r/NatureIsFuckingLit

~ Cyril (who has bad control of his timetable)


On Today’s Tide:

  1. COVID |

    • Loosening of all travel restrictions

    • Roadmap for normality

    • Schools re-opening

  2. Compulsory testing scrapped

  3. Economy | Large inflation in Feb due to COVID

  4. Events

For premium High Tide readers

  1. Economy | Tourism board predicts massive growth

  2. Politics |

    • Two arrested for sedition on social media

    • It's not technically porn: Principal secretly filming little girl gets let off the hook

Become a premium subscriber for just $8US a month - extra daily news and weekend roundups!


COVID in HK

Twitter avatar for @tripperhead
🇭🇰 5th 👋 Aaron @tripperhead
COVID-19 cases 🇭🇰 (March 21st) • new reported local PCR+ cases: 4,518 • new reported RAT+ cases: 9,545 • new local total: 14,063 • imported: 5 • Total cases: 1,061,758 • local cases 5th wave: 1,048,220
8:36 AM ∙ Mar 21, 2022
48Likes14Retweets

Coronavirus in Hong Kong

  • New cases: 14,063

  • Total cases: 1,061,758

  • New deaths: 223 (44 backlog)

  • Total deaths: 6119

New cases and deaths are both on a very quick downward trend, CE Carrie Lam made this clear in yesterday morning’s press conference too. That’s good news becauuuuseeee….

Twitter avatar for @tomgrundy
Tom Grundy @tomgrundy
And here is the timetable for relaxing social distancing measures: hongkongfp.com/2022/03/21/bre…
Image
4:46 AM ∙ Mar 21, 2022
63Likes25Retweets

We now have a roadmap back to normality

Starting 1 Apr, COVID regulations will slowly loosen, starting with flight bans, followed by face to face school resumption, then gradually opening back up over the course of three months.

April 1: Flight bans scrapped

  • Flight bans from A+ Category countries scrapped (in fact the whole categorisation has been scrapped). Carrie Lam said this was because the state of COVID in those places were “no longer worse than Hong Kong”.


    However, those coming back will still have to quarantine in a hotel, albeit only a mandatory 7 days instead of 14. You are allowed to leave the hotel after day 7 for self-monitoring where you are not confined to a location, but will still need to do tests. You can also choose to stay in the hotel until day 14. If you test positive while in the hotel, you’ll be transferred to designated quarantine hotel.

April 19: School Resumption

  • Schools will be allowed to gradually resume in-person teaching, starting with international schools, primary schools and kindergartens. Non-international secondary schools will resume classes after exams.

April 21: Relaxation stage 1

  • Social gathering limit increase from 2 → 4

  • Restaurants allowed to open again till 10

  • Cap 599F premises (e.g. beauty parlours, gyms, clubs, LCSD museums and performance venues etc) will be allowed to re-open except bars.

Relaxation Stage 2 (no date)

  • Social gathering limit increase from 4 → 8

  • Bars, beaches, pools re-open

  • No need to wear masks when doing exercise or hiking (Why is this relaxed later than restaurants and museums? Don’t ask, just be happy)

Relaxation Stage 3 (no date)

  • No details but the gov says they’ll probably relax more stuff and keep basic anti-epidemic measures (e.g. masks, Leave Home Safe etc).

In her press conference, CE Carrie Lam made this clear that these measures (especially the flight ban) are not U-turns but a refinement of her current policies.

Can you imagine a world without lawyers? - GIF on Imgur
Not u-turning colourised

No Compulsory Testing (for now)

The government also announced yesterday a temporary shelving of the compulsory universal testing plan, citing a lack of resources and bad timing.

Carrie Lam said "I've heard from many people ... 'you can do it if you try hard enough' and claims we can test everybody thrice in a week. But after a comprehensive review, simulations and evaluation of each and every step we found it's not that simple."

I don’t know who said that to her.

The plan originally announced in February led to panic buying and a mass exit from the city, primarily among expats (I was jokingly calling this dodging the draft, although it’s not really all that funny).

Lawmakers couldn’t agree on whether this was good. Some politicians said the government is wasting resources from the Mainland by scrapping testing, while others argued the decision is the best for business.

Michael Tien from Roundtable however, noted that it won’t be possible to re-open with the Mainland before universal testing is done.


Vegetables caused inflation

According to the CSD’s latest Consumer Price Index statistics, overall inflation went up 1.6% in Feb primarily due to the price of fresh vegetables which tripled in that month.

This was primarily because lots of cross border truck drivers either caught COVID, or were close contacts leading to an overall lack of fresh supply.

In recent weeks, the Mainland and HK governments have been working together to ensure supplies continue, so prices have more or less stabilised.

Look at this cool chart I found!

Hong Kong Food Supply at Risk Again as More Drivers Get Covid
Source: Bloomberg Quint

Events and deals

Support Harbour Times, our friends and partners by attending these events! Let everyone know who sent you by tagging @harbourtimes

  • 10% off the Cellar: La Cabane x Harbour Times

Our friends over at La Cabane have kindly given all High Tide subscribers 10% off everything on their online store - high quality wines, cheeses and wines-and-cheeses accessories.

lacabanehk
A post shared by La Cabane - Natural Wine HK (@lacabanehk)

Use the code HIGHONWINE10 at www.lacabane.hk to stock up your wine cellar today.

HKU COVID and Mental Health Survey

Wanna become a statistic? I sure do! HKU is running a voluntary online mental health survey till April, trying to find if there is any (yes) relationship between COVID and HK’s mental health problems.

Twitter avatar for @harbourtimes
Harbour Times @harbourtimes
Stolen/borrowed from @tripperhead Important survey for everyone to fill in - Chinese and English available
Image
6:30 PM ∙ Mar 19, 2022

Supporting Ukraine from the comfort of your couch

This isn’t really an event per se, but we thought our very internationally-minded audience might be wondering how to get involved with humanitarian efforts. Luckily, you can literally do it by drinking beer, eating good Ukrainian food and calling our good friends at the Polish Consulate General.

harbourtimes
A post shared by Harbour Times | Hong Kong News (@harbourtimes)

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