Hong Kong’s onerous system of hotel quarantine for travelers was meant to stop infection from seeping into a largely virus-free city. Instead, it’s become a spreading ground, seeding an omicron outbreak that’s led to thousands of people being locked down and calls for reform of the controversial setup.
An outbreak at a public housing estate of over 200 confirmed and preliminarily positive cases on Monday has been traced to a traveler who caught omicron while undergoing 21 days of isolation at a hotel in Kowloon. While she entered the hotel Covid-free, the pathogen was transmitted to her from an infected person staying at the same hotel.
