Penny’s Bay diary: 14 cups of coffee, 7 PCR tests, 2 loads of laundry and a partridge in a pear tree – Hong Kong quarantine by the numbers

The Post’s managing editor takes stock and sets his countdown clock as his time at the government facility draws to an end – just in time to switch to a hotel room

Christmas, however, comes early, as the arrival of a free pizza warms cockles and restores faith in humanity

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Our managing editor mops his bathroom for the seventh (OK, third) time as he eyes his looming departure. Photo: Brian Rhoads

Published: 11:00am, 22 Dec 2021Updated: 4:00pm, 24 Dec 2021

South China Morning Post managing editor Brian Rhoads recently flew home to the United States to attend a memorial service for his late father. After he had already left, the Hong Kong government moved the US into a new high-risk category, meaning he will spend the first of his three weeks of quarantine at the government’s Penny’s Bay facility. Over the next seven days, he will recount his experience. You can read about Day 5 here.

From a strictly epidemiological standpoint, my week-long stint in the isolation ward of one of the world’s most restrictive coronavirus quarantine regimes has been a success. From an individual standpoint, on my seventh and final day at Hong Kong’s Penny’s Bay centre, it will be a pleasure to see the back of this place.

Testing upon arrival at the city’s once bustling but now eerily sleepy international airport catches the bulk of Covid-19 cases at the border, regularly snaring a half-dozen or so passengers daily who are infected with one or another variant of Covid-19, the latest being the rapidly spreading Omicron.

The second line of defence, for all passengers from countries on Hong Kong’s highest-risk tier – like the United States, from which I arrived – is a week in compulsory confinement and daily testing in the Penny’s Bay government centre.

Penny’s Bay staff drop by for yet another PCR swab. Thankfully, it will be among the last. Photo: Brian Rhoads

If they haven’t caught a passenger with Covid-19 by then, two more weeks in a hotel and more testing ensnares virtually all the other cases among travellers. (The government adjusted the policy to four days at Penny’s Bay, 17 days at a hotel this week, though only for new arrivals).

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Penny’s Bay diary: a stint in Hong Kong quarantine

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Penny’s Bay diary: 14 cups of coffee, 7 PCR tests, 2 loads of laundry and a partridge in a pear tree – Hong Kong quarantine by the numbers

The Post’s managing editor takes stock and sets his countdown clock as his time at the government facility draws to an end – just in time to switch to a hotel room Christmas, however, comes early, as the arrival of a free pizza warms cockles and restores faith in humanity

The Post’s managing editor takes stock and sets his countdown clock as his time at the government facility draws to an end – just in time to switch to a hotel room

Christmas, however, comes early, as the arrival of a free pizza warms cockles and restores faith in humanity