Someone pls explain why I need to quarantine

[FreakishKoala]

I live in Hong Kong. But I'm British. I want to come home at some point to see my grandmother who I fear may not have long left (not corona FYI). But I can't because I would have to quarantine in the Uk and then again back on arrival in HK. That makes a one week visit a 5 week mission.

Hong Kong has no community spread. We haven't had a locally spread case for weeks and all new cases (of which there are very very few) are imported and found early due to (1) testing - every single person that lands here is tested and (2) mandatory quarantine on arrival.

So pls can someone explain to me why I need to quarantine in the Uk after I have come from here? Surely it should only be one way - ie you should quarantine when you return from a higher risk country!?

So you say that Hong Kong has few cases in part due to strict quarantine when people arrive but dont understand why the uk might want to do the same! Am I missing something?

You could catch it on the plane or in the airport.

I don't want to start a bun fight but it's not possible for our government to know for sure that the infection and transmission statistics of some other countries are reliable (and visa versa).

What about people you come into contact with at the airports where they are coming from multiple destinations? What about the staff on the plane who are travelling to a lot of different countries all with varying infection rates and you'll be in close contact with for the length of your flight?

Because that's the protocol 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ you have no idea who you will encounter in hong Kong airport or on the plane and where they have come from.

You pose a risk to us in the same way you pose a risk to HK.

It's quite simple really. If you don't want to isolate, don't come back. Having a British passport doesn't exclude you from quarantine.

Indeed if we'd put this in beforehand, we may not have had 50000 deaths.

Unfortunately Hong Kong is part of China, I can't see the government placing faith in China's case numbers very soon, and hope they won't. Decisions need to be taken overall.

If you believe it's totally safe, you could quarantine at your grandmother's house for 2 weeks and then go back. If she's at a care home then other lives are at risk, not just yours and hers. You could contact the British embassy and apply for compassionate dispensation from the Home Office. Given New Zealand's experience I don't know how that will go. If you're allowed to visit but in full PPE would that scare her?

I'm sorry your grandmother is so unwell.

Who am I going to catch it from on the plane if we have no cases here? Genuinely confused about that

@mrex the border is closed and has been for a while. Anyone who comes in from China is tested and quarantined too, so that's not correct.

@solomummy at no point did I suggest that being British was the reason I should not need to quarantine. I said I shouldn't need to quarantine because I am coming from a place with basically no cases. Don't get defensive and bring entitlements one that weren't mentioned please.

Genuinely surprised you all think I'm going to catch a massive dose at an airport in HK... which is pretty much empty these days and when every single person in departures will have been through quarantine when they came in or has been in HK long enough that they clearly don't have it. Makes no sense at all.

It also makes no sense tat the British government is going to open air bridges with countries like France that have many more cases than our 0. So I'd love to know how you reconcile your arguments with that...

People in transit who have arrived from other countries. People in HK who have travelled from mainland China.

I'm glad HK is seeing the benefit of quarantine for all incoming visitors. Do you not understand why we would want the same benefit?

As an aside you'd be coming to see family so you'd be quarantining with them surely - which is the reason for your visit, and in your own home when you return.

You have to do it because that's the rule, it's one rule for everyone, not specific to individual's circumstances.

You say you'd have to quarantine on the way home so presumably the same thing applies.

My brother has just flown back from Hong Kong and I’m not going anywhere near him til he’s done 14 days quarantine. You don’t k ow where the airport staff, flight crew or fellow passengers have been prior to making contact with you. This is how the virus spread in the first place. People thinking it couldn’t happen to them.

The UK may start offering the option of a test at £140 for those who don’t want to quarantine. If that isn’t up and running when you arrive you could organise your own test privately.

As I say there is a great deal of concern that some countries are either deliberately or accidentally misreporting the true situation in their own country, so as a precaution in order to prevent a rerun of China infecting the rest of the world precautions are necessary.

I'm very sorry to hear that your grandmother is unwell OP, but we still have to protect as many lives as we can.....

@titchy there is no transit allowed here at the moment other than with special permission. So try again.

@learntoloveyourself your brother it at far greater risk from you than you are from him.

I am in the same situation but not in HK. I'm in the south of Italy and my region has zero cases confirmed and since March 11 cases in total.
I feel for you as I need to get to the UK for similar reasons. Rumour has it maybe the quarantine will be lifted end of June but who knows.

It doesn't matter whether you can reconcile though really does it. If we allowed people from certain countries to avoid quarantine we're effectively saying we trust the governments of those countries when they say they have no active CV cases - and actually the uk can not assure itself that is the case at all.

New Zealand said there'd be no special cases either - look what happened.

@titchy fair point re NZ but it's probably worth noting that they traced they pretty sharpish and they haven't suddenly had a massive spread and new death rate from those two people as a result...

That was two people travelling together as well, easy to trace. Imagine if we said (which we will in a few weeks ) no one entering the uk has to isolate, then we're potentially trying to track and trace thousands of people from abroad with no UK contact details.

Beijing was also covid-free. Then suddenly it wasn't by which time it had spread a lot.

Its not just hong kong airport you could catch it from, its the plane, the british airport where you could potentially be mixing with people from countries all over the world

We dont want any new bouts of the virus coming into the country. Its fair enough that you quarantine on arrival.