My journey to Hong Kong during COVID: location tracking device, self-administered spit testing
Clues to how Hong Kong only has 4 deaths in a 7.5 million person city bordering mainland China
Why I’m writing this
I had no idea that Hong Kong has only had 4 covid deaths, despite the fact that it borders mainland China and is a super dense city of 7.5 million. After covid was well contained, students returning from the US and UK led to a surge in cases, leading to very strict testing and quarantining procedures for travelers that were mandated in the past few weeks. I wanted to share my recent journey because while I isolated in the US, the news was understandably so flooded with tragic national updates that I didn’t really keep pace with the positive developments around the world. I realize now too that there was a lot of information asymmetry about how other countries and cities are dealing with the virus, information that I believe could help people. I’d love to share what’s going on in Hong Kong, why it was as prepared as it could be, and my personal experience undergoing tough testing and quarantining measures as a traveler from the US.
At the time of writing (May 8), HK has seen 0 local cases for 17 days, over a full incubation period, and for now it seems like covid has been contained (update: on May 12, the 23-day streak of 0 local cases was broken after 1 positive case was confirmed. officials still plan to keep things open). Life has been pretty much as usual; people pack malls, beaches, offices. Today at 11:59pm, my travel mandatory quarantine will end, coinciding with the reopening of the last string of venues, including gyms, bars, beauty salons and movie theatres. The only thing that’s still shut down are clubs, and schools are reopening in late May.
At first I stayed at Brown
When Brown University shut down, I was adamant on staying on campus, like many other seniors. I had no idea the degree to which the US was going to have to shut down and socially distance, because from what I knew, things didn’t shut down to that severity in Hong Kong and Korea. Then passed 2 months of grueling and monotonous isolation. I finally decided to fly to Hong Kong after my employer in NYC told me that my start date would be delayed from June until July due to COVID.
Hong Kong was as prepared as a city could be
Painful lessons from SARS outbreak
How has Hong Kong done so well, despite the fact that it literally borders mainland China and is part of China? There’s many reasons, some I’m sure yet to be understood (like mutations leading to different covid strains, or because BCG vaccinations for tuberculosis are mandatory in Asia and beyond). But a major reason is because it’s not the first time this has happened in Hong Kong. Hong Kong suffered a different coronavirus outbreak (SARS) in the early 2000's. As a result, the city was both as practically and socially prepared as it could be. Even before COVID, many public surfaces like elevator buttons and escalator handrails were sanitized regularly, with signs like “sterilized every 30 minutes.”
Masks were already worn pretty regularly
In addition, people are socially accustomed to wearing masks. People wear masks when they are sick out of common sense and good manners, especially after SARS. And in both Hong Kong and Korea, people wear masks on days with high pollution levels. So people don’t find it weird to wear a mask, and began wearing masks in public very early on. And importantly, most households already had masks before covid, and they were already sold much more commonly in everyday stores and pharmacies compared to the US.
Quick and firm action
Likely as a direct result of the history of the SARS outbreak, Hong Kong’s citizens and government reacted quickly and firmly to COVID. Hong Kong clamped down on travel quickly. On February 3, doctors and nurses went on strike demanding to close the border with China. Two days later, with 21 confirmed cases and 1 death confirmed at the time, Hong Kong required that all travelers from China quarantine for 14 days.
Hong Kong has many expats and therefore has a lot of international students. After students returning from the US, UK and Europe led to a surge in cases after the coronavirus was pretty much contained, Hong Kong acted swiftly to severely limit travel and require serious testing and quarantine procedures to inbound travelers.
Brown told students about its decision to shut down on March 12, and tons of other colleges shut down around then. If I had flown in then, I wouldn’t even had to quarantine by law. But by a week after, on March 19, all inbound travelers had to quarantine for 14 days, and by March 24, only residents of Hong Kong were allowed to fly in. Other students and travelers coming in earlier in March didn’t experience the strict measures I did; they simply had to have a normal temperature (which the airport already checked through thermal cameras before covid) and wear a concert/event-like filmsy paper bracelet, instead of a location tracking device. But by late April, when I came along, covid measures were very tough on travelers flying in because there had already been several consecutive days with 0 local cases and the only new cases were coming from travelers (“imported” cases). It’s amazing how fast Hong Kong was able to rapidly create and evolve measures for travelers in the month of March and April.
My 44 hour journey + testing
A total of 44 grueling hours passed between leaving my apartment in Providence, RI and arriving at my hotel to quarantine in Hong Kong (it’s normally still a long journey, but never this arduous). The day that I flew, there were only 2 direct cross-country flights from Boston to LA, so I ended up having to take a suboptimal itinerary with a 10 hour layover before hopping onto my 16-hour flight to Hong Kong. It was a long journey, but once I arrived at the Hong Kong airport, a whole ’nother journey awaited me.
Starting from April 8, everyone arriving at the airport must take a COVID test upon arrival, and from April 22, all travelers have to wait at the testing centre next to the airport until their results come out. If your test is positive, you’re sent to a hospital immediately, and people who were near you on the flight are sent to a quarantine centre. If you test negative, you still have to quarantine for 14 days. Since this takes about 8–11 hours, if your flight arrives at night, the Hong Kong government puts you up at a hotel, the Regal Oriental. I touched down at 6:45am so I didn’t have that luxury.
I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the testing and waiting process but here’s what happened once I landed in HK.
Wrist strapped with location tracking device
Once we got off the plane, a bus took us directly to a processing center where my wrist was strapped with a location tracking device. I had to download the quarantine app, which was connected to the device. You had to give permission to the app to use your location at any time during the quarantine.
Spit testing for COVID
At the Asia-World Expo, a huge convention center by the airport, was where all the testing and waiting happened. Here I was made to do a deep throat saliva test for COVID, which in less sexy terms meant that I had to spit in a vial with clear liquid. There was no probing with a cotton swab. It looks like spit tests are just as effective as taking an invasive swab down your nose, and the US is catching on.
Here’s what the spit test is like:
I was then told that I had to do a second and final test on day 12 of quarantine, in case I had caught the virus while traveling and hadn’t tested positive the first time around.
I didn’t have to pay for the test because the government was testing me.
7–8 hour wait for results
I waited in a huge room with desks spread far apart. It looked like an exam centre in there. They sent the saliva samples to a lab and we had to wait and wait. They gave us water and sandwiches — the sandwich was made of white bread and had a single thin slice of turkey ham with two seasoned cucumbers. It was pretty gross but I was starving and even asked for seconds, which they provided.
Hours passed, and after about a 7 hour wait after the testing results, and almost 9 hours after landing, I was told I tested negative. It was such a relief; no-one on my plane tested positive and it actually turned out that nobody who tested at the airport that day was positive. I still had to quarantine for 14 days, and while I could go home, my family and I decided I would go to a hotel to quarantine.
There’s a lot I want to share for public and historical knowledge, so I’ve split my story in two. Here’s what my next 14 days looked like. I share why I decided to stay in a hotel and what that experience was like, from having a robot deliver my food, to daily temperature checks, the government video calling me once and my final round of testing.
