Hong Kong Is Dropping Its Vaccine Pass System From 29 December 2022. Unvaccinated and Partially Vaccinated Can Now Access Restaurants and Public Venues.

Quarantine and visitor entry requirements are also being relaxed. Only mask mandates remain. Vaccine uptake & boosting is high. Cases and deaths are climbing. Excess Deaths Not Released since August.

Following China's lead Hong Kong is relaxing pandemic measures from tomorrow 29th December 2022; specifically the vaccine pass, testing of visitors prior to entry, and quarantine requirements.

Under prior requirements even children as young as 5 were required to be triple jabbed to access venues.

Only mask mandates will remain, ironically one of the most tightly clung to, but inutile measures. I suspect too much face would be lost if everything was relaxed at once!

We cannot forget these heartbreaking images of Hong Kong children playing flutes, double masked.

Meanwhile primary series uptake is just over 90% and boosters are at nearly 86%. 3rd boosters were being pushed.

It is going not very well in terms of cases and deaths, which both continue to climb.

The authorities (Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu) claim they are relaxing Covid-19 measures as cases are controlled due to vaccine uptake.

No excess death data has been released since August 2022. This would be important data to have updated.

If this soaring cases and deaths scenario is controlled, I would hate to see how they would define uncontrolled!

Nevertheless the relaxation is a big step in the right direction. I have friends and colleagues celebrating in Hong Kong right now. Hong Kong has been one of the hardest places on the planet to withstand pressure to take these products. Those who refused were excluded from society, attending job sites, and meetings, and restaurant dining. My vaccinated colleagues had to submit daily antigen tests to company management before going to work / attending project sites.

Hong Kong had a huge culture of eating out. Many tiny flats had barely any cooking facilities; eating out and street food was a way of life. Will some semblance of normality return? Time will tell!

I doubt we will see return to normality because the reverberations of these pandemic measures are still emerging and will take years for the debris to settle.