Quarantine update: 0+3

Long awaited change in policy. The removal of hotel quarantine requirements for inbound travellers arriving into Hong Kong. It feels like a small win considering most other countries have removed all restrictions, and ultimately this really only helps residences but it's a step in the right direction.

So what does this mean? 3 days of self-monitoring, daily testing and minimised interaction with the public without masks (Restricted access to venues that require Leavehomesafe app sign in. Read: Gyms, bars, restaurants).

Quarantine update: 3 + 4

Change from 7 days in a Designated Quarantine Hotel, to 3 days in the hotel, 4 days self-monitoring. The fine print is, day of arrival now becomes Day 0 where a PCR test is performed. Day 2, another PCR test is performed. You are allowed to leave after 8 am on Day 3, if the PCR comes back negative. So technically, you're in the hotel for 4 days, still we are moving in the right direction.

Meanwhile back in Hong Kong, in order to go to bars, a daily RAT test is required with name, date, and time of test. This is kind of insane.

Update: Noticed it has been a lot easier to secure Quarantine hotels back into Hong Kong.

Freedom Day

Looking back, I'm not entirely sure how people could do 21 days of hotel quarantine. I feel seven days was bearable, only just. A typical hotel quarantine day looks like this: Wake up around 7:45 am, go through standard "Upon waking" protocol, gentle stretching, some meditation, brush teeth and log into work. Around 9 am breakfast is delivered. The day inevitably becomes bookmarked by meal time. 9 am breakfast, 1 pm lunch, 2 pm RAT test, 7 pm dinner. Work in between, the occasional walk around, sit, push ups, stretches, some evening yoga, and then some TV and reading before bedtime. It's scary how work occupies majority of time and the mind throughout the week.

The Saturday was the most challenging, and even then, it was a bit of yoga, lots of TV and reading. Hats off to Harry Potter, Cobra Kai and This is Us for entertaining me. Check out Sunday - Freedom.

How I became stranded: the Timeline of events

Timeline of Hong Kong government announcements.

November 29th - Government moves Australia to "High Risk" category, ie: 3 week hotel Quanrantine

https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202111/29/P2021112900754.htm

January 5th - Government bans flights from Australia 

https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202201/05/P2022010500713.htm

January 14th - Government extends flight ban

https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202201/14/P2022011400637.htm

February 11th - Government extends flight ban

https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202202/11/P2022021100536.htm

February 22nd - Government extends flight ban until the 20th April

https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202202/23/P2022022300339.htm

It's the end of February, I should have been back in Hong Kong on the 2nd of January. Then back on the 4th of Febuary. So here I am, end of February with no Quarantine Hotel, no flights and an expected return date of the end of April. 

Not a bad outcome, if I do say so myself.

Flight update

 Extension to flight ban. New target 4th March - moving to 4 months of being "stuck" in Sydney.

Covid Isolation (Second week)

There's something about having to do another isolation for a second time. There's also something about having to do isolation in what could be the best week of an ending summer time. In hindsight, that first isolation feels like a complete waste of time. So here I am, out in Olympic Park, listening to the sound of Cockatoos in the morning and cicadas in the evening. Thankfully Ali managed to hook me up with a serviced apartment. Aircon doesn't work, but it's comfortable. This will be home for the next seven days.

Day 7, symptoms all but gone, slight cough remains as does the faintest of lines on the RAT. Will wait another day before discharging myself.

Covid strikes

 "The vaccine works! I was the only person who had a booster and I managed to avoid Covid" were the words of proclamation. That is, until last week. They said it starts with a sore throat, and a spicy cough. Thursday, my throats starts to become scratchy. Friday I wake with headache, and mind fog. The RAT still remains negative. Come Friday evening, I have a fever and body aches. Covid strikes.

Close Contact Isolation (First week)

It's Friday afternoon, I tear open the RAT. I stick the clean swab up my nose, swirl it ten times around my right nostril. Sneeze. The I swirl it ten times around my left nostril. My eyes tear, I sneeze again. I dip the swab into the solution and swirl, dab and mix the sample twenty or so times. I carefully squeeze 5 drops into the applicator and watch the liquid fill up the indicator. 15 minutes later, the indicator is still lined up with the "T". Negative. Time to go out. I meet colleagues for drinks in an outdoor area before heading back to the apartment. By the time I get back to the apartment there's 7 people chatting, drinking, eating. 

It's now Sunday, we have the Airbnb for another two days. NSW is currently reporting around 35,000 cases a day, down from the 100,000 or so, earlier this month. My phone flashes a notification, I've been added to a newly created Whatsapp group. Everybody who came over to the apartment on Friday is in the chat. The first message is "Tim got a positive result and I got a negative result". No sweat, one out of 8. We head over to the get a PCR. I test negative, my house mate tests positive. So begins the slow emergence of the cluster gathering that we hosted. 

I immediately check into a new hotel and prepare to isolate. Over the next couple of days, 7 out of the 8 people from Friday night would eventually test positive to Covid. A week goes by, two RAT tests, two PCR tests later. I, the only one with the booster remains negative.

#whoisamanjaffari

Omicron

"Hong Kong has announced a two-week ban on incoming flights from eight countries and tightened coronavirus restrictions after detecting cases of the Omicron variant.

Carrie Lam, the chief executive of Hong Kong, told reporters on Wednesday that incoming flights from Australia, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Kingdom and the United States, including interchanges, would be banned from January 8 to January 21." - As reported by Al Jazeera

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/5/hong-kong-bans-flights-from-8-countries-tightens-covid-curbs

Booster

It's been more than 8 months since my last Covid19 vaccination, based on the studies and anecdotal feedback my antibodies are probably very low right now. Since booster shots are available in Sydney, I decided it probably is a good time to get the booster.

Given the meteoric rise in cases, it looks like I'm not the only one looking to get the jab. Hundreds of people flocking to the Olympic Park site to get protected. I waited around 90 minutes for the jab. 

Update, this third jab, like the second jab really knocked me out. The side-effects kicked in around the 24 hour mar: feverish, tiredness and muscle aches. Felt worse than the second jab; Could be the fact that I went with Moderna. What a way to spend a day off.

Two more weeks and I'll be at maximum protection, at least in theory.

Omicron: Change of plans

A new variant has been detected in South Africa, the Omicron strand. As such, all travellers to Hong Kong from countries with local Omicron transmission will be 3 weeks quarantine. Unfortunately, I had only booked my hotel quarantine for two weeks. I'm now on a waitlist to extend the hotel for one week. Unfortunately, this change of quarantine requirement has taken a lot of Christmas holidayers by surprise.

Category A - three weeks Rebooked for Feb 3rd - I get another month here in Sydney!

https://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/202111/29/P2021112900754.htm

80%

 As per Channel 9 news: "Friday, October 15: NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has said 'Sydney and NSW is now open for business' after announcing the abolishing of hotel and home quarantine for international arrivals on November 1"

https://www.9news.com.au/videos/health/quarantine-a-thing-of-the-past-for-nsw-travellers/ckurkwk53000l0imno7hmnley

Live with covid, state of mind

Originally labelled as a "Stroll out" due to the apparent lack of urgency with the Australian Covid response, the Australian public has responded in tremendous fashion to the draconian lock downs where New South Wales now stands at 82% of the eligible population having received at least one dose of the vaccine. The adoption and willingness to get vaccinated has been labelled as one of the fasted globally. Australia has also abandoned the notion of a "Zero Covid" country and conceded that for the country to move forward it has to adopt a "live with covid" approach, which can only succeed if majority of the population is fully vaccinated. Majority in this case has a number, that number is 80%. If forecasts are to be believed, NSW should reach this milestone by the end of October, with the entire country slightly behind NSW with early November target date. 

Selfishly, this is all very encouraging news for me - those dates, although touch-and-go, do align quite closely with my existing flights. There is also speculation around changing the Australian quarantine rules for inbound passengers, with a new pilot scheme being tested as we speak. Again, it's still early to tell, but things are moving in the right direction. 

I have joined a forum called "Aussie Expats Coming Home", which I will say is an excellent resource for Australians trying to get back home. Lots of posts sharing experiences with quarantine, flights and changes in policy affect Australians overseas. Unfortunately, there are countless stories of people having flights canceled as their flights draw closer. At times it can be difficult to read with some people in less fortunate positions than I. There are some who are desperate to visit sick relatives, or are looking to repatriate back home, terminating rental, quitting jobs etc. Where a canceled flight results in a delay of their plans for up to 2-3 months. 

So I wait here, and will just have to see what happens. As of writing, this week people have posted news of early October ticket cancelations. Two weeks before the flight seems to be the sweet spot when tickets are canceled. For me, that means between now and mid October is when, and if I get that dreaded email. As November draws closer, I am fear the sight of an email from Singapore Airlines with regards to my flight. Fingers crossed!

Covid updates

It's been one month since I booked my flights to Sydney. The headline news is that, covid is running riot through parts of Sydney and the city remains in lockdown. As a result, the Australian government has once again slashed the number of allowed inbound passengers from 6000 to 3000 per week. In addition, the process to leave Australian Shores for Australians has changed with the introduction of a new approval to depart. Hong Kong has also responded to the current state in Australia, with the reclassification of Australia to a 'medium risk' country.  Things are becoming more difficult.

So what does this all mean? 

From a flight perspective, suddenly there are no more available flights to Australia and there's a high chance my existing flight, or at least my ticket might actually be canceled. Secondly, I need to look into the approval process to leave the country, depending on how strict this process is, there's a chance they might decline my reasons to return to Hong Kong. Finally, travellers from Medium Risk countries are now required to fulfil a 14 day quarantine period. So quarantine from Australia has moved from 7 days back to 14 days of hotel quarantine. All these things are not ideal.

Fully vaccinated

 

The (first) Jab

At the time of writing, the Hong Kong public have access to two vaccine options: Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac vaccines are both available. Dedicated vaccination centres have been setup to administer one or the other, with more available centres providing the BioNTech (based purely on my lazy eyeball of the centre descriptions).

Arrived for my appointment at 5 pm. Majority of the people are expats, 15 minutes of briefing. "Do you know which vaccine you are receiving?". Jab. 15 minutes in waiting area to ensure no adverse reactions. Treated myself to some Assam Laksa post jab. Finding myself really tired by 9 pm. I ended up having one of the best sleeps in a while.

Home cooking

No more team A/team B split, which means no more cooking at home

 

Lease termination

 Finally, social distancing restrictions have been relaxed. First time since December 8th. Gyms to reopen and dinner available up until 10 pm. In other news, I also received this whatsapp message from my landlord this morning.

"Morning, we regret to terminate the lease agreement as attached because we intend for self use when we purchased the flat. Thanks so much for your continuing support!"

Very annoying. Time to start looking for a new apartment.

Week off

I had grand plans for twenty-twenty travel. It was 90% planned out, Hawaii and India in the first quarter. Sydney for Easter, Singapore end of April, New Orleans and Texas for May, New York and Chicago in September, Seoul and Bali in October, Sydney for Christmas. The weekends were scheduled and the annual leave was approved. Then, somebody ate a bat and all plans for twenty twenty were dashed. 

When annual leave cannot be accrued, it changes the way you use it. I have taken the odd day off from work to recover from big nights, or to study for exams, but for as long as I can remember, blocks of annual leave have been reserved for overseas travel. I realise as I type this, this sounds like the ramblings of a privileged douche bag, however the point is not to talk about travel, but to describe the relationship I have with annual leave as an expat living abroad. Given the current circumstances, work has granted employees the ability to carry over 10 days of annual leave, which means all remaining leave must be used, so here I am taking an entire week off purely because it's a use it, or lose it policy. So here I am with one week of no work to spend in Hong Kong.

Initially my plan was to rest and recover from the ablation, that coupled with the fact I had a sprained ankle (this ankle sprain will come back and get me, see future post) and a shoulder impingement meant no real exercise. So I had decided to treat myself to alarm-clock-free mornings, catching up with friends and some home cooked meals. However, the reality of spending an entire week at home during Covid doing nothing dawned on me and I ended up trying to find things to keep myself productive. 

Here's where I eventually landed. 100 Hour Meditation and Pranayama Teacher's Training Course, twelve mornings, 9:30 am -12:30 pm, I have also signed up for two Coursera online courses: An Introduction to Psychology and Portfolio and Risk Management.

Covid test

Preparation for this week's procedure. My first Covid19 test, not the invasive one where they tickle your tonsils or attempt to clear the sinuses but the test where you spit into a cup (apparently this isn't as accurate?). Filling up a cup with saliva from the depths of your throat is actually quite challenging, especially if there's only saliva generating the bulk of the sample. Couple of loud hocks and we're done.

Cost: 1200 HKD (200 AUD)

Update: I'm Covid Negative