Arriving in Hong Kong during Covid

If I must come up with an analogy for Hong Kong's screening system, I would say it's like a linear video game with quite a few missions that have to be cleared one by one. 

1. The tutorial level, of course, is having before boarding a 14-day quarantine package booking at a local hotel and – if you are arriving from a high-risk place such as the UK – a negative test result. Indeed, the thing I had been worrying most was not getting one at Heathrow. That was the only thing that could have derailed everything else.
   
   
2. We were told on the plane that we have to fill in a health declaration form. Supposedly it could be done either on paper or online, but paper forms were nowhere found – not on the plane, nor could I see any upon arrival. They must exist somewhere, but I guess they want everyone to fill in the form and generate a QR code on their smartphone if they can. And that’s what I did.
   
   
3. The next mission is a rather simple one. Passengers with a smartphone have to download an app called, rather plainly, StayHomeSafe. You could tell it was the designed back in the early days when everyone could quarantine at home. You have to show the form's QR code and the app to get past the first checkpoint. 
   
   

   

   First checkpoint (30.11.2020, 17:46)

   
   
4. Then there's a security check for all arrivals. That’s something new.
   
   
5. At another checkpoint, an official would verify the phone numbers one supplied on their declaration by calling it. As soon as your phone rings, one would be given a pink raffle-ticket-sized piece of paper, with the words “Tel OK” on it.
   
   

   

   "Tel OK"

6. One then gets a welcome pack: two reusable CuMasks, and a 47-page bilingual 'Points to Note' for inbound travellers in a cozily unpretentious brown "On Government Service" envelope. Oh yes, an electronic tag on my arm too.
   
   

   

   Contents of my welcome pack

   
   

   

   A StayHomeSafe electronic tag

   
   
7. Then one came to a sign that said: “obtain quarantine order”. In my case, I had waited almost an hour and a half before I could be seen by an authorised officer under sub. leg. 599E of the Laws of Hong Kong. I showed him the QR code to my form and my hotel booking. In exchange, I got two items.
   
   

   

   The quarantine order station has a typically Hong Kong set-up: unpretentious, pragmatic, does the job. Almost nostalgically symbolic. (30.11.2020, 18:50) 

   
   The first is a compulsory quarantine order. It is an A4-sized piece of paper which legally instructed me – under pain of a fine of HK$25,000 and a prison term of 6 months maximum – to take a PCR test, wait for its result at a designated place, and then go to and stay in the quarantine hotel I've booked.
   
   
8. The second is a test kit. Yes, you've guessed it – the next mission is to take another Covid test. Following what illustrative videos showed, I went into a testing booth, made a “kruuuaaa” sound to bring up saliva from my throat, disposed them into a plastic test tube with reactants in it, and put the whole thing into a sealable bag marked as “BIOHAZARD”. 
   

   

   "BIOHAZARD": my saliva sample (30.11.2020, 19:32)

   
   
9. Since my test result would only be available the next morning, I was given a room number in the government "holding centre" in which I would have to spend the night in. 
   
   
10. At the end comes the familiar bits: immigration, baggage reclaim, and customs. The airport was eerily empty.
    
    

    

    An eerily empty airport (30.11.2020, 20:10)

    
    
11. After 4.5 hours in the airport, a coach took us to the "holding centre", which used to be a three-star hotel in Tsing Yi with a great view over the container ports.
    
    The Department of Health also provided dinner and breakfast. Both took me down the memory lane and reminded me of school meals of old. 
    
    At 11 am the landline phone in my room rang. “You may go now“, the other end said. I quickly packed up my stuff, checked out, and – this might be the biggest "loophole" in the whole system – went to the quarantine hotel by my own means. And there I have been staying.
    
    

    

    A room in the Holding Centre. There wasn't any desk so I had to have my school-meal-style dinner on top of my suitcase. (30.11.2020, 21:48)

All in all, it's quite a draining and thorough process. But, I guess, It does also keep people of Hong Kong and their normal lives safer.