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Hong Kongers abuses under ‘inhumane’ isolation

Katrina * was alone for a few days in a hotel room in Hong Kong when she received a phone call that her baby had been tested for coronavirus at the airport.

The pair were inducted into the labyrinthine category of “zero-Covid” principles, which drove them from the hospital to the hotel to the state. He was told he would not be released on bail until the end of December, seven weeks after returning to Hong Kong.

“It’s difficult, especially with a small child. You feel like a prisoner,” he said, speaking on the phone while in prison.

Sofia * and her five-year-old daughter will be in solitary confinement for 44 days by the time they are released. Complex exit means that he was hospitalized for more than a month after the baby was tested, and then he was sent to a hotel to stay for another two weeks.

“We were crazy,” he said, repeating himself alone. “I didn’t know how long I was going to stay.”

Hundreds of adults and children have been affected by epidemic control measures developed in recent months that increase the amount of time people who have been tested for HIV – or those around them – have to live in isolation in a hospital or in isolation.

In August, Hong Kong developed ways to eliminate Covid patients in isolation. Everyone who has been tested must stay in hospital for at least 10 days, show no symptoms and pass two PCR tests for release.

Then, in October, the city re-established a two-week isolation for Covid recovered patients. The move was criticized as unnecessary and unnecessary by some health professionals.

Those who have been in close contact with an infected person, known as “close contacts”, are confined to a government cell for 21 days.

It’s over travel restrictions, which requires that each entrant remain in solitary confinement for 14 or 21 days, depending on their country of origin. The results of these methods have made it one of the most rigid and longest regimes in the world.

This month, 54 people in a private hotel were extended for 14 days – resulting in some staying for 35 days – one guest was found to be of Delta nationality.

“I was angry and very upset. I was like no, I would never do this again, ”said one of the victims, who did not want to be named.

In another case, 120 children from kindergarten and elementary school at Discovery Bay School were taken to a government facility for three days by the father of one child – a pilot – after contracting coronavirus outside.

Travelers are required to stay between 14 and 21 days in a state-approved hotel but anyone found to be HIV positive must stay in hospital for at least 10 days © Peter Parks / AFP via Getty Images

Like China, Hong Kong’s goal since the epidemic was to eradicate the virus from its borders. It has retained the same pattern as other Asian regions, including competing businesses such as Singapore and Tokyo, open.

The plan means Hong Kong avoids nationwide closures and records 213 people dead in 7.5m people. But it is now locked in the middle of risk-taking as the center of a global business that relies on free travel, or rest and risk-taking measures, which can be dangerous due to low vaccination rates among the elderly.

Residents and health professionals are divided over whether the procedures should be released.

Commercial groups have increased promoting work, says workers are leaving the area due to the strike. Several officials told the Financial Times newspaper that their families did not return to the city after going abroad this summer for fear of being locked up in solitary confinement.

“What worries me the most is that we are isolating ourselves from the rest of the world,” said Arisina Ma, former President of the Hong Kong Public Doctors’ Association. “Hong Kong should be a place for the world.”

Yet others insist that the principles are reasonable because they have curtailed the death toll in some countries and allowed daily life to continue as it is.

Carrie Lam, the city’s mayor, said “it does not provide public protection to simply reopen the border”.

Joseph Tsang Kay-yan, chairman of the Hong Kong Medical Association’s advisory committee on infectious diseases, told FT that prolonged isolation was “reasonable”.

Hong Kong has never been a big problem from March, meaning that more people captured by the regime entered the city from abroad.

The traveler leaves the Hong Kong Port entrance hall

Hong Kong’s travel ban puts it at risk of becoming a global business hub, critics say. © Chan Long Hei / Bloomberg

“I have been here for 15 years, but I cannot live in a country that would deprive children of their rights and simply take off their hats,” said Kate *, who was ordered to stay in solitary confinement for three days at a government facility. named Penny’s Bay and her son at Discovery Bay School.

“It has been a very cruel experience and there is nothing I want to pass on to my children.”

Hong Kong’s policies are driven by unpopular mechanisms by China, as well as its efforts to open up the “bubble” of travel with the country.

“Hong Kong has chosen to follow the Chinese government while ignoring what is happening in the world, which sounds strange to the self-proclaimed city. of Asia. ” He added: “They are people who have to endure a long stay.”

For some of these people, these strategies make them consider living in Hong Kong again.

“I do not know when [we will go]”But as soon as I get out I start selling my chairs,” said one of the detainees. “I do not want to be in their ‘bubble’ but with the daily fear of being called back to Penny’s Bay. 100 percent, we are gone,” the man said.

* Names have been changed


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