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【New Coronary Pneumonia】Traveling under the epidemic cannot be the privilege of the rich

2020-07-02T09:40:25.777Z


On Monday (June 29), the Thai government announced that it will establish special arrangements to relax entry and exit controls with five economies including Hong Kong. The establishment of the Hong Kong government is led by the Tourism Commissioner, the Food and Health Bureau, the Transport House Bureau, the Department of Health, etc.


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Written by: Review Editor Room

2020-07-01 08:00

Last update date: 2020-07-01 08:00

On Monday (June 29), the Thai government announced that it will establish special arrangements to relax entry and exit controls with five economies including Hong Kong. The Hong Kong government set up an inter-departmental team led by the Tourism Commissioner, representatives of the Food and Health Bureau, the Transport Bureau, and the Department of Health to discuss specific matters with the Thai government in the next one to two weeks, such as relaxing details of immigration control measures and reducing cross-border Risk arrangements for the spread of the epidemic situation and specific operations, transportation facilities, etc.

Thailand is the first country outside of China to have confirmed cases of new coronavirus. As of Monday, 3,169 people have been diagnosed. After the peak of confirmed diagnosis passed from mid-March to mid-April, the epidemic situation in Thailand gradually and steadily declined. In June, in addition to the newly confirmed 17 cases on the 4th, the other days had single-digit growth, or even zero growth. Therefore, the Thai government disclosed the plan for the entry of foreign tourists as early as June or reopened it in July.

Tourism is the backbone of the Thai economy. In 2019, Thailand’s foreign tourists reached 39.8 million, with consumption of nearly US$60 billion, accounting for 11% of the country’s GDP. Therefore, the epidemic has not hurt the Thai economy. Some groups expect that the number of foreign tourists in Thailand may drop to 14 million this year, a drop of more than half. This is one of the reasons why Thailand is eager to develop the tourism market.

The Thai government announced on the afternoon of June 29 that it will establish special arrangements to relax entry and exit controls with five economies including Hong Kong. (Reuters)

Testing costs are key

In fact, not only Thailand is facing such a dilemma. When the epidemic presses the pause button for the global economic life, and as the people realize that the epidemic may continue for a long time in a limited amount, seeking a balance between economic exchange and epidemic prevention has become the main point of all places. For example, in addition to actively negotiating with Thailand to relax exchange restrictions, the Hong Kong government is also working hard to launch a health code to communicate with the mainland to strengthen economic exchanges.

It is just that the Hong Kong government must take into account the affordability of citizens of different strata when making specific details of the foreign exchange policy. For example, the health QR code exchanged with Guangdong is too expensive for testing in Hong Kong, which makes people doubt that it will only become the privilege of Hong Kong rich people after implementation. The cost of nucleic acid testing in Hong Kong is between 1,000 and 3,000 yuan, which is far more than tens of times more expensive than the mainland. It may also allow mainland visitors to Hong Kong to far exceed those who can afford to go to the mainland from Hong Kong. .

Although the cost of living in Hong Kong is more expensive than in the Mainland, the testing fee for Macau, which is similar to Hong Kong's consumption level, is only 180 MOP. The reason is that the Hong Kong government has not considered it in this regard. For example, nucleic acid testing in Hong Kong is purchased by reagent laboratories from Germany, the United States, and France, which involves transportation costs, intermediate distributors, and so on. Therefore, the price will be higher than that of the mainland and Macau, which are purchased by the government.

At present, the specific provisions of Thailand and Hong Kong to relax the entry restrictions have not yet been introduced, and preliminary estimates will initially only involve business people, but the government should consciously consider whether the measures can benefit everyone. For example, if the nucleic acid testing is also involved in the relaxation of restrictions in Thailand, the government should learn from the lesson and actively adjust its strategy. The government can purchase prices uniformly and lower the prices, and introduce the prices of different production areas for citizens to choose from, and increase the subsidies for testing. If Hong Kong's testing measures are not universal, it will not only cause class inequality, but also make the so-called exchanges into empty talks that can be entered by foreigners and difficult for Hong Kong people.

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Source: hk1

All news articles on 2020-07-02

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