Hong Kong residents will be barred from quarantine-free travel to mainland China if a coronavirus infection is identified in their neighbourhood under the city’s new health code system, and it could take up to three weeks to be cleared for entry again.
The health code will open for registration on Friday, it will be linked to the existing “Leave Home Safe” risk-exposure app, and while joining the new scheme is voluntary, anyone wanting to cross the border without undergoing isolation must use the new code. Only the green one will be accepted at crossing points.
Under proposals being considered by Hong Kong health authorities, participating residents living in the same building as a coronavirus patient would have their codes turn red, while those in the surrounding area would be assigned a yellow one due to the elevated risk of infection.
Once all residents in the designated area have taken a series of compulsory coronavirus tests – which could take as long as 19 days to complete after an infection is first discovered – their QR code will return to green if no more cases have been identified.
