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Every weekend, Sang Poon plays saxophone at the Sai Kung waterfront. Poon used to work in a bar playing jazz and pop music, but lost his job during the pandemic and turned to busking. He says Sai Kung is a hotspot for visitors. “I love the view here. I have fun playing music and I get to make some money," said Sang Poon. Despite Hong Kong encountering the largest Covid-19 wave of the pandemic, residents are flocking to Sai Kung as travel restrictions kept most home for the Lunar New Year. "It's been busy for the past week. Business is okay because of the Chinese New Year holidays. It is especially busy on Sundays," said Tim Fung, a staff member at the Chuen Kee seafood restaurant in Sai Kung. Sai Kung has become a preferred destination for Hongkoners looking to sightsee, hike and eat as well as escaping the busy city. "There's beautiful scenery here with a relaxed atmosphere. It's really a nice holiday vibe and we enjoy it," said Kathryn Troy and Stephen Troy, a couple walking with their 15-month old daughter. The Troys live in nearby Sha Kok Mei village and visit the waterfront regularly. While seafood restaurants at the waterfront hustle, nearby grocery shops closer to Sai Kung square are not as busy. Timothy Ng owns Butcher King, a fresh vegetable and meat store on Yi Chun street, which has been operating for 31 years. “The last two to three years have been the hardest because of the pandemic," said Ng.  

From today, inbound travellers from high-risk countries will need to be quarantined in a hotel for 14 days instead of 21 days. They then have to self-monitor at home an additional seven days. The rules applies to all places outside mainland China, Taiwan and Macau. But the flight ban for eight countries will be extended until February 18 to avoid imported cases and pressure on the local medical system. Under the new quarantine policy, inbound travellers can go out during the home quarantine period, but they have to undergo two mandatory tests on the 16th and 19th days after their arrival in Hong Kong. “The revision from 21-day hotel quarantine to 14-day hotel quarantine plus seven-day self-monitoring is not because of pressure from anybody,” chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said last week. “The science tells us that Omicron variant has a relatively short incubation period. So a 14-day quarantine will be good enough according to my experts.” An infectious disease expert agrees with the science behind this change. "If we compare imported cases detected in the last month versus imported cases detected earlier in the epidemic, there are now very few if any cases detected after the third day of hotel quarantine," said Professor Benjamin Cowling, the head of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Hong Kong. Kong Shasha, 24, an exchange student studying in Italy, will return to Hong Kong tomorrow. If the mandatory quarantine period is still 21 days, she would prefer to stay in Italy. "I cannot accept being isolated for 21 days, and this revision in policy has helped me a lot," said Kong. However, some in the business community want more to be done. "It will help the local business community if they want to do outbound business travel because …