As Hong Kong and Singapore prepared to open the world’s first travel bubble, Edward Yau, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, came to the Chamber on 4 November to discuss the scheme in more detail. 

He was joined by Danny Yeung, CEO and Co-founder of testing company Prenetics, and Arnaud Bernaert, Head of Shaping the Future of Health and Healthcare at the World Economic Forum, for a wide-ranging discussion about the safe resumption of travel amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Hong Kong-Singapore scheme will enable people to fly between the two cities without the need for quarantine. The flight itself will be a bubble, with no transit passengers allowed on board.

“It is about more than reopening travel,” Yau said. “It’s about finding a new balance in resuming business in the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak.”

He explained that the Government was seeking ways to allow economic activities to return, without increasing the health risks.

“We are trying to find the balance between virus containment and resumption of business. This is easier said than done,” he said. The travel bubble with Singapore is a small start that will hopefully act as a pilot for further opening up.

Yau noted that although Singapore is a small territory, it is a significant source of business travel as well as tourists for Hong Kong. The city-state’s geography was also a factor in the choice, as there is a low risk of travellers straying out of the jurisdiction.

He explained that, since June, Hong Kong had been in discussions with a number of countries about travel bubbles. While some of these destinations, like Singapore, have relatively few cases, others – such as France and Germany – have seen a new surge in infections, showing how quickly the situation can change. 

“The system must be flexible,” Yau said. “It is essential for this scheme to be scaleable, and also suspendable.” 

He added that the Government was continuing to negotiate with other destinations, and that the arrangement with Singapore could serve as a model not only for more bubbles with Hong Kong, but also for the travel sector around the world.

“We hope this scheme will give members of HKGCC comfort that there will be a way forward,” Yau said. “I hope the success of the Hong Kong-Singapore model will contribute to the global platform of reopening.”

Yeung from Prenetics explained that, since April, the company had carried out more than 300,000 Covid-19 tests, with an average turnaround time of 12 hours. Besides the Hong Kong Government, Prenetics has also worked with overseas organizations, including football and cricket groups in the United Kingdom.

“The role of testing is really important to restore normalcy,” he said.

Yeung explained that while PCR – or polymerase chain reaction – is the “gold standard” of testing, it is relatively slow. Currently, travellers arriving in Hong Kong must wait at the airport for around eight hours or overnight. Outside of the airport, it can take two or three days for people to receive their results.

“We wanted to be more efficient,” Yeung said. “A rapid test is critical to the resumption of travel and the recovery of the economy – and it must be accurate, fast and low cost.”

So Prenetics has been cooperating with Oxford University on faster tests that use RT-LAMP technology. Although its accuracy is not as high as PCR, Yeung noted that quick results can be effective in slowing the spread.  

“Speed is critical to detect outbreaks,” he said. “Even within 24 hours, people can infect their family and friends.”

Looking forward, he said that he hopes that rapid testing at airports will become commonplace to enable people to travel again.

WEF’s Bernaert agreed that the resumption of travel will be a crucial step in the return to relative normality. 

“Quarantine elimination is obviously a big incentive for travellers to resume their journeys, and in turn this will result in huge economic benefit for the travel industry,” he said. “But we need to do it with caution.” 

This means ensuring that opening the skies does not lead to a false sense of security among travellers, which could increase risky travel between areas with low and high case numbers. 

On testing, Bernaert said that LAMP was a promising alternative to PCR: “We support any solutions that reduce the time between the test and the moment the traveller gets on the plane.” 

He also discussed the CommonPass system, a digital health passport that so far has been used by sports teams and airlines. Such a pass would testify that the traveller had complied with the necessary regulations. 

Looking at the global picture of travel regulations relating to health, Bernaert explained that nations are currently supposed to follow WHO norms. 

“The problem is, those norms were not built for the crisis we are in right now,” he said, adding that the current standard only allows for the banning of travel in the case of Yellow Fever.  

But one positive outcome of the Covid-19 crisis could be the updating and harmonizing of regulations affecting health and travel, such as the authentication of test results.  

“There is a huge opportunity for WHO and the International Civil Aviation Organization to promote new standards that can be enforced in a consistent manner,” Bernaert said.