Abacus | Hong Kong should learn from Japan’s Covid-19 quarantine. The state pays and treats you like an adult
If quarantine’s here to stay, why not make it pleasant? In Japan, hotel stays are just six days – less than half the requirement even of HK’s newly ‘relaxed’ rules
During that time, you are given three square meals a day, trusted not to do a runner and the government foots the bill. All you need to do is iron your own toast
Being locked up in government-mandated quarantine as part of international travel remains to me as hard to swallow as the pre-departure nasopharyngeal swab.
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But both have been with us in one form or another for over two years, and chances are that mandatory quarantine will remain with us for a while yet – especially if Hong Kong’s rate of re-opening is anything to go by (though at least it appears to be going in the right direction, having cut the confinement period from three weeks to 14 days).
It is possible that some countries now are in the last throes of the current Covid-19 wave and accompanying travel restrictions. Britain, for example, is removing all travel-related coronavirus requirements in two weeks’ time as infection rates in the Omicron wave fall faster than with previous variants and hospital admissions appear to be peaking. A similar phenomenon is being seen in South Africa where Omicron was first identified, as well as some parts of the United States where it quickly tore through, leaving most with generally mild or no symptoms.
Conservative Japan is also opening up again and is expected to start issuing business and study visas soon, after they were put on hold in November as Omicron hit the news. But I needed to pay a visit for work right away and, faced with newly reinstated government-mandated quarantine, had to bite the bullet and get on a plane.
Fortunately, having lived and worked in Japan for more than half of my career, I could enter with my resident’s card without additional paperwork. Unfortunately, though, Omicron had made the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare twitchy in December, prompting it to tighten its requirement. Previously, it had required travellers to undergo 10 days of self-isolation and take a single PCR test. Now it requires six days of government-supervised quarantine in a hotel and two PCR tests followed by four days of self-isolation at home. Still just 10 days overall, though, and less than half of the hotel time required even under Hong Kong’s newly relaxed rules.
Neil Newman is tagged in British racing green for his stay in quarantine in Japan. Photo: Neil Newman
Like in Hong Kong, some hotels have been designated by the government as “quarantine hotels” in which incoming visitors must stay. However, unlike Hong Kong, the Japanese government foots the bill for the inconvenience and pays the hotel directly, thereby giving it support but not a chance to rip off visitors. And under the deal, local catering firms or the hotels themselves provide three very decent square meals a day.
