To: The HKSAR Government

On behalf of the 5000 residents of Hong Kong, I would like to petition to come back home quicker.

We have been patiently waiting in India for the lock down to be lifted, and we are all grateful for the hard work that both Hong Kong and Indian governments have been putting to keep all of us safe.

However, we have reached a point where if we do not get our lives somewhat normalized, the damage will be greater than Covid-19 itself.

People in India have been in a lock down now for over 75 days. For Indian travelers being subject to another 14 days quarantine in a HK government facility despite being tested negative, is causing a major bottle neck situation preventing people from returning home to Hong Kong faster.

The Hong Kong government’s quarantine facility only supports 500-600 passengers per month coming from India per month.

There are at least 5000 Hong Kong residents who are currently in India, waiting to get back. At the current rate it will take 8 months for all of us get back to Hong Kong, which is completely impractical.

All governments are having to use probability numbers when dealing with Covid-19 cases in relation to inbound passengers. Here are some data which is causing us to question the logic Hong Kong Government is still using, to require passengers coming from India go through a mandatory government quarantine facility. I believe the logic is outdated and needs to be revised.

• No. of cases in India is currently lower than USA, UK, Spain, and Russia
• No. of deaths and total deaths per million in India is currently lower than Canada, Germany, Spain, France, UK and USA
• Total cases per million for India is currently lower than South Korea, Australia, Germany, France, Canada, Russia, UK, Spain, USA, Singapore

The main criteria stated in the Hong Kong Department of Health website requires mandatory government quarantine for passengers from India, is purely due to the per capita test rate being very low. However, here are some statistics that I feel is more important than the per capita testing ratio.

India’s confirmed case ratio (5.145%) is lower than Canada (5.468%), Japan (5.787%), UK (7.483%) and USA (10.098%) based on the number of tests done until date versus the positive cases declared. So why are passengers from India subjected to a different quarantine procedure despite being tested in Hong Kong and found negative?

The daily confirmed case ratio of India (7.10%), a percentage of the tests conducted daily versus positive cases, which is far below Russia (21.34%), below South Africa (9.70%) and slightly over USA (5.05%).

Click HERE to see the Table and Images of the data compiled.

India is only testing those that have a high probability of being positive, whereas other western countries are testing for even mild symptoms. Naturally, the rate of confirmed cases in other countries versus the tests done, will be lower than India.

The positive case numbers are higher in India to some extent, because of the slum areas (lack of social distancing) and due to displaced migrant workers problem. The people travelling from India to Hong Kong are neither from the slum class or migrant workers. People travelling back to Hong Kong are business executives, professionals, senior citizens, home makers and children.

In addition, India has the Arogya Setu mobile app that monitors and notifies each person if they have come in contact with any positive covd-19 people. This app has been installed by over 100 million people in India, most of the passengers coming back to Hong Kong have also installed this app.

Therefore, by adding India in the same category as South Africa, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal is extremely unfair. India’s testing capacity, accuracy, app tracking support makes Indian passengers coming back to Hong Kong far safer than other countries like Pakistan, Nepal, South Africa, Bangladesh.

I believe the probability of covid-19 positive cases coming from USA, UK and Europe will be very similar to those coming from India.

So far, the flights that have come from India to Hong Kong have most likely proven my above case with the very low positive case numbers.

Please allow all the 5000 Hong Kong residents come back to Hong Kong within the next 30-45 days by lifting the bottle neck situation immediately on your end. Kindly allow the people who have tested negative in Hong Kong upon arrival, to complete their 14-day quarantine at their respective homes or in a hotel (based on individual preference).

Thank you for your time, look forward to hearing from you.

In gratitude,

Vijay Mahbubani