Hong Kong Eases Travel Restrictions, But…

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For the past two years, Hong Kong has been taking a zero-tolerance approach toward coronavirus. Hong Kong now faces an unprecedented coronavirus outbreak. As we’ve seen several times before from other destinations, this is leading to travel restrictions being eased. Still, don’t expect that you’ll be able to travel to Hong Kong as a tourist anytime soon.

Hong Kong’s horrible coronavirus outbreak

Hong Kong has imposed some of the most extreme travel restrictions of any destination, clearly under the influence of China. In addition to closing borders to visitors:

At this point Hong Kong is facing what can only be described as an unprecedented omicron outbreak, with the worst mortality rate we’ve seen anywhere since the start of the pandemic:

For context, the United States has a population roughly 44x that of Hong Kong, meaning that this would be the equivalent of the United States having nearly three million coronavirus cases per day, and roughly 11,000 coronavirus deaths per day.

Hong Kong’s wave is so bad for a couple of main reasons, including lack of natural immunity (due to so few prior infections), plus a low vaccination rate among the most elderly and vulnerable part of the population.

Hong Kong easing flight ban & quarantine

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has today outlined plans to ease many travel restrictions. This comes largely due to pressure from the business community, which feels that the current travel restrictions will make Hong Kong lose its significance as a global business hub (obviously!).

Here’s what we can expect with these latest changes as of April 1, 2022:

While this is a step in the right direction, this is still a long way from a full reopening:

Mainland China has clearly used the pandemic to shut off Hong Kong from the rest of the world, and exert more control. So while there are also signs that China may eventually open to the rest of the world again in some form, we’re still a long way from that becoming a reality.

While this is a step in the right direction, personally I’d be surprised if Hong Kong opens to visitors without quarantine anytime in the near future.

Bottom line

Hong Kong is slowly starting to ease travel restrictions, after two years of a zero-tolerance approach toward coronavirus. This comes as Hong Kong sees one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks we’ve ever seen anywhere.

While the elimination of flight bans and reduction of quarantine is good news, Hong Kong is still nowhere close to reopening to visitors on a widespread basis. Personally I’m not counting on that happening anytime soon. But who knows, we’ve seen lots of governments do a 180, so maybe I’ll be surprised.

What do you make of Hong Kong easing travel restrictions?