NEW YORK/LONDON, Dec 27 (Reuters) – Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 and the Nasdaq fell on Tuesday after the release of U.S. economic data, while oil prices rose after China said it would scrap its COVID-19 quarantine rule for inbound travellers, which was seen as a major step in reopening its borders.
U.S. Treasury yields rose after economic data that showed the advance goods trade deficit for November narrowed to $83.35 billion from the prior month’s $98.8 billion, while a separate report pointed to continued struggles for the housing market as home prices fell under rising mortgage rates.
Oil pared gains as some U.S. energy facilities shut by winter storms began to restart after the commodity earlier hit a three-week high as China’s latest easing of COVID-19 restrictions spurred hopes of a recovery in demand.
On the first day of the holiday-shortened trading week, the rise in U.S. rates put pressure on shares in the heavy-weight rate sensitive technology sector, according to Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Stamford, Connecticut.
“It’s a lack of anybody with the conviction to step in and buy right now,” said O’Rourke, who said further pressure came from a sharp decline in shares of electric car maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O).
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) rose 113.48 points, or 0.34%, to 33,317.41, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 5.67 points, or 0.15%, to 3,839.15 and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 90.23 points, or 0.86%, to 10,407.64.
Markets in some regions including London, Dublin, Hong Kong and Australia remained shut after the Christmas holiday.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index (.STOXX) rose 0.19% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe (.MIWD00000PUS) gained 0.03%.
Emerging market stocks (.MSCIEF) rose 0.27%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) closed 0.53% higher, while Japan’s Nikkei (.N225) rose 0.16%.
Benchmark 10-year notes were up 7.5 basis points at 3.822%, from 3.747% on Friday. The 30-year bond was last up 9 basis points to yield 3.9116%, from 3.822%. The 2-year note was last up 6.4 basis points to yield 4.387%, from 4.323%.
The dollar pared losses on Tuesday after China said it would scrap its COVID-19 quarantine rule for inbound travellers, which also boosted risk-related currencies such as the Australian dollar.
The dollar index , which measures the greenback against a basket of major currencies, was down 0.01%, with the euro up 0.14% at $1.065.
The Japanese yen weakened 0.37% versus the greenback at 133.36 per dollar, while Sterling was last trading at $1.2019, down 0.34% on the day.
Commodity currencies such as the New Zealand and Australian dollars also moved higher. read more
In energy futures, U.S. crude recently rose 0.98% to $80.34 per barrel and Brent was at $84.81, up 1.06% on the day.
Gold prices rose as optimism surrounding decisions by top consumer China to ease COVID-19 restrictions weighed on the dollar, while resilient U.S. yields cast a shadow over non-yielding bullion’s advance.
Spot gold added 1.5% to $1,824.29 an ounce. U.S. gold futures gained 1.09% to $1,815.50 an ounce.
Reporting by Sinéad Carew in New York, Nell Mackenzie in London
Additional reporting by Xie Yu and Ankur Banerjee
Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Matthew Lewis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
China will remove quarantine requirements for inbound travellers from January 8 as the country dismantles the remnants of a zero-Covid regime that closed it off from the rest of the world for almost three years.
The National Health Commission on Monday unveiled the move as part of a wider announcement that downgraded the country’s management of Covid-19 and definitively abandoned a host of other preventive measures.
The NHC said that more than 90 per cent of cases of the Omicron variant were “mild or asymptomatic”, part of a shift in tone towards coronavirus as it rages across a country where until recently very few of the 1.4bn population had contracted it.
The government, which this month also scrapped the requirement for positive cases to quarantine at central facilities, is now battling a severe winter outbreak with estimated cases spiralling into the hundreds of millions and health services under pressure.
Models have estimated the virus could lead to close to 1mn deaths, though China’s public data has ceased to reflect the situation on the ground and other zero-Covid rules such as mass testing have largely ended.
Chinese equities led rises across the Asia-Pacific region on Tuesday following the announcement, with the CSI 300 of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks climbing 1.2 per cent. Hong Kong’s exchange was closed.
China pursued a strict zero-Covid policy shortly after the pandemic first emerged, locking down many of its largest cities and imposing quarantine requirements on foreign arrivals as part of an attempt to eliminate the virus within its borders.
Late this year, the policy began to unravel as authorities struggled to contain outbreaks in numerous cities, including the capital Beijing. Protesters took to the streets in November in a rare display of defiance against the central government’s approach, which was dramatically relaxed shortly afterwards.
Monday’s announcement signalled the end of the zero-Covid system that transformed China’s relationship with the outside world, and which for long periods successfully limited the transmission of a virus that had swept through every other advanced economy.
At one point this year, the quarantine rule required travellers to spend three weeks in a hotel room. The current policy of five days at a hotel followed by three days at home will end on January 8. Arrivals will still be required to have a negative Covid test result within 48 hours of departure and to wear masks on flights.
The sudden removal of restrictions has already put immense pressure on China’s healthcare system, especially in Beijing, which was one of the centres of the outbreak prior to the policy’s abandonment and was thought to be one of the best-prepared cities.
Recent economic data has highlighted the costs of the policy. Retail sales, a gauge of consumer spending, fell 5.9 per cent year on year in November, worse than analyst expectations, while the economy is set to miss an annual 5.5 per cent growth target that was already its lowest in decades.
But analysts have also warned over the economic and corporate costs of the virus itself as it sweeps the country, with Apple among those vulnerable to further supply chain issues.
Under zero-Covid, citizens in China were required to test every few days at booths across major cities and scan a code on their phones to enter buildings. Such practices have largely disappeared as cases multiplied rapidly, though as recently as late November individuals in Shanghai were still being taken to central quarantine because they were close contacts of positive cases at bars.
Oil prices rise more than 2% on back of China easing quarantine measures
Reopening stocks jump after China’s eased Covid measures reported
China trims Covid quarantine time by two days
Chinese state media announced on Friday that the country will reduce quarantine time for international travelers by two days.
The revised rules state travelers will be required to stay at a quarantine facility for five days, shorter than the previous period of seven days, with a two day period of home observation.
— Evelyn Cheng, Lee Ying Shan
Earnings preview: Softbank to post net profit after seeing previous losses
Softbank is expected to post a net profitin upcoming quarterly earnings.
A median of forecasts predict the Japanese conglomerate to report an annualized net profit of 2.769 trillion yen ($19.5 billion) for its second quarter ending September 30, according to a Refinitiv survey.
The company posted two consecutive periods of quarterly net losses, with a 3.16 trillion yen net loss in the first quarter ending June 30 and a 2.1 trillion yen net loss in the fourth quarter ending March 30th.
— Lee Ying Shan
Hong Kong movers: Alibaba, JD.com, Tencent soar at open
Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese technology companies popped in early Asia trade as the broader Hang Seng Index briefly added more than 6%.
Tech giants Alibaba and JD.com soared 7.94% and 10%, respectively. Tencent added 9.16%, and Meituan gained 12.26%.
— Lee Ying Shan
Currency check: Japanese yen, Chinese yuan at strengthened levels
The Japanese yen and Chinese yuan hovered around strengthened levels after the U.S. dollar index fell more than 1% overnight on a softer-than-expected inflation report.
The yen stood at 141.63 against the greenback, hovering around the strongest levels it’s seen in two months before weakening past 150 in October.
The onshore yuan was around 7.18, also trading near its strongest levels to the dollar in nearly a month.
— Jihye Lee
Asia-Pacific indexes pop at open after U.S. inflation report
CNBC Pro: Bitcoin will fall further, says fund manager — until this one catalyst kicks in
Bitcoin is down by 75% from its all-time high, and a cryptocurrency exchange is on the brink of bankruptcy. In such an environment, a bond fund manager reveals the one thing that’s needed for prices to rally.
Michael Howell from Cross Border Capital also said that due to the missing catalyst, there’s an increased risk of investors getting in a “bit too early.”
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Ganesh Rao
CPI rises less than expected
The U.S. consumer price index — a broad measure of inflation — rose by 0.4% in October from a month ago. On a year-over-year basis, the CPI rose 7.7%.
Economists polled by Dow Jones expected a month-over-month gain of 0.6% and a year-over-year advance of 7.9%.
Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core CPI increased 0.3% for the month and 6.3% on an annual basis, compared to respective estimates of 0.5% and 6.5%.
— Jeff Cox
Dollar index on pace for worst day since Dec. 2015
The U.S. dollar slid Thursday against a basket of other currencies as investors cheered October’s CPI report coming in weaker than expected, signaling that inflation may have peaked.
The dollar index shed 2%, putting it on pace for its worst daily performance since Dec. 4, 2015. If the index falls more than 2.1%, it will hit levels not seen since 2009.
This week, the dollar index is down 2.3% and is on pace for its worst week since March 2020.
—Carmen Reinicke
Biden to raise concerns about Xi’s relationship with Putin ahead of G-20 summit
The U.S. government has introduced some of its most sweeping export controls yet aiming to cut China off from advanced semiconductors. Analysts said the move could hobble China’s domestic chip industry.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
President Joe Biden is expected to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week in a face-to-face meeting.
The meeting between the two leaders, the first since Biden ascended to the U.S. presidency, will take place ahead of the G-20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia.
“I think the president will be honest and direct with President Xi about how we see the situation in Ukraine with Russia’s war of aggression,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters on a call.
“This is a topic that the president and President Xi have spoken about several times before. They spoke about it extensively in March in their video call and then they spoke about it again in July, so it’s part of an ongoing conversation between the two of them,” added the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Avian Flu Outbreak Detected at Alexandre Family Farm, Forcing Business to ‘Depopulate,’ Quarantine
An avian flu outbreak has forced Alexandre Family Farm to “depopulate” its entire flock and start over from scratch, Blake Alexandre said Friday.
The contagious disease was detected in a flock of 43,000 birds from an “independent table egg producer” in Del Norte County, the U.S. Centers for Disease control and Prevention’s H5N1 Bird Flu Detection map reported.
Alexandre confirmed Friday that the flock belonged to his family. The outbreak was detected about a week ago, he said, and they have finished culling their birds in compliance with government protocol. Alexandre Family Farm is unable to sell eggs for awhile — Alexandre didn’t know for out long. But, he said, they will get new birds and come back.
“It’s kind of hard to deny that that would be us, so yeah, it’s us,” Alexandre told the Wild Rivers Outpost. “It’s an extremely difficult time on the farm and we just kind of need to get through it quietly.”
In addition to the case in Del Norte County, new avian flu outbreaks have been detected in Stanislaus County and Monterey County, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. As of Oct. 4, outbreaks had been confirmed in domesticated flocks in Butte, Calaveras, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Fresno, Sacramento and Tuolumne.
Infected locations are quarantined and birds euthanized to curtail disease spread, according to the CDFA.
In Oregon, avian flu has been detected in Coos, Douglas, Lane, Deschutes, Linn and Tillamook counties, according to the CDC.
Del Norte County’s agricultural commissioner, Justin Riggs, said the state veterinarian’s office informed him about the local outbreak, but he didn’t know it was at Alexandre Family Farm. Riggs said his department staff will participate in an inspection if the CDFA or state veterinarian’s office asks it to, but he hasn’t received any “contact about any of that.”
“Our role typically on a day-to-day basis in that type of animal health issue is small,” Riggs said. “I had received a CDFA alert from the State Veterinarian’s Office that avian flu was detected in Del Norte. But typically if they wanted us to do something, I’d get a phone call from CDFA.”
Alexandre called the recent avian flu outbreaks a “bit of a pandemic,” saying it’s the worst year his family has ever seen. He said he has been working with state and federal veterinarians to try to find out how long his farm must quarantine and when they can begin replacing their birds.
Alexandre said he hasn’t received that information yet partly because those agencies are “overwhelmed with problems everywhere so they’re spread real thin.”
“I think it’s the worst year we’ve ever had and I think what should be stated is it’s carried by wildlife,” he said, adding that the wild flocks of geese that visit his pastures just left. “We’re very vulnerable to that because our birds are spread over a 300-acre pastured area.”
According to CDFA, avian flu has been detected in wild birds in 22 California counties, including Siskiyou.
Although Del Norte isn’t included among the 22 counties CDFA lists as having infected wild birds, backyard flock owners should be careful about sanitation, especially if they’re going to anywhere wild birds frequent or if visiting other domestic flocks, Riggs said.
These precautions are also important for those who own ducks, turkeys and other birds besides chickens, he said.
“If it were me, I wouldn’t wear my shoes or boots in areas where my flock is going to be that I’ve worn off property,” Riggs said. “What you’re aiming for is keeping your flock as separate as possible from everything else. You don’t want to encourage wild birds to come to your property if you have a flock. You definitely don’t feed them and if you have left over fruit in trees, consider culling that out.”
Avian flu is highly contagious and often fatal to birds and is spread through direct or indirect contact from infected birds, according to CDFA. Symptoms include trouble breathing; clear runny discharge from nose mouth and eyes; lethargy; decreased food and water intake; swelling around eyes, head, wattles or combs; discolored or bruised comb, wattles or legs; stumbling and falling; twisted neck or sudden death.
Riggs urged people to visit the CDFA website and read about animal health and biosecurity. They can also stay up to date on avian flu outbreaks in California, he said.
CDFA urges poultry owners whose birds have experienced sudden illness or death to call its sick bird hotline at (866) 922-2473.
Alexandre’s children started Alexandre Kids, their pasture-raised organic commercial egg business, about 18 years ago. Their products have appeared in stores statewide, most recently in Southern California.
The avian flu outbreak among his family’s farm is a blow, Alexandre said, but he and his son are working on bouncing back.
“I feel very fortunate we have a path to get back to production,” he said.
People sit outside a bar at Emily Hill in Singapore, on Monday, Aug. 22, 2022.
Ore Huiying | Bloomberg | Getty Images
SINGAPORE — Singapore is set to allow non-fully vaccinated travelers to skip quarantine on arrival starting Monday, authorities announced Wednesday.
The country is also set to remove indoor mask requirements from Aug. 29, as it seeks to take another step toward living with Covid.
While the further easing of safety and border measures is a “significant milestone,” the country must still “be mentally prepared for any sudden change because we don’t know how this virus will mutate and what the next variant will look like,” said Singapore’s deputy prime minister Lawrence Wong, who is also co-chair of the Covid task force in Singapore.
Visitors who are not fully vaccinated will still be required to test negative for Covid within 2 days prior to their departure for Singapore. But they will no longer need to serve a 7-day quarantine at home or at their place of residence.
Currently, fully vaccinated travelers can enter Singapore without taking Covid-19 tests or undergoing quarantine.
Non-vaccinated long-term visitors and short-term visitors who are 13 years and above are currently required to apply for entry approval to enter Singapore. This requirement will also be lifted from Monday, according to the Ministry of Health.
Easing of mask requirements
Masks will be optional indoors and required in special settings, such as on public transportation and in health-care settings like hospitals, residential care homes and ambulances from Monday, the health ministry said. They are optional in taxis, private hires and in the airport.
“The reason is that, we have identified areas where essential services are being carried out in enclosed, crowded spaces and which are frequently used by vulnerable persons,” said Wong, who is also the country’s finance minister.
The decision to lift mask requirements was first announced by Prime Minster Lee Hsien Loong on Sunday.
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Currently, masks are required in nearly all indoor settings, with the exception of workplaces where there are no physical interaction or customer-facing areas.
“For business and employers, they have the discretion to decide whether or not they might want to do this [from] a workplace safety point of view … we are lifting a mandatory requirement for mask-wearing but it is optional,” said Wong.
Boosters
In preparation for the next wave of omicron, the health ministry said a second mRNA Covid booster is now recommended for those who are 60 years and above.
Previously, second boosters were only recommended for those who were 80 years and older.
Around 93% of the population completed the primary vaccination series as of Monday, while 79% of the total population received boosters.
The high booster rate is a “key reason” that the nation has been able to ride through the current Covid wave, said Singapore’s health minister Ong Ye Kung.
Ong stressed the need to expand recommendations to of second boosters to those 60 to 79 years old — five months after their first booster — even though the first booster has provided strong protection against severe illnesses for those in this age group.
The health ministry also recommended that children between 5 to 11 years old receive one booster — five months after the second dose of their primary vaccination series — to boost their protection.
Covid situation in Singapore
Plans are in place for a potential new Covid wave, perhaps in the winter, said Wong.
“We are continuing to monitor closely and we have drawer plans in place for various contingencies including scaling up our healthcare capacity as well as … vaccination operations if and when the need arises,” Wong said at the press conference on Wednesday.
He added that those plans would “buy us time,” should there be a Covid wave that is aggressive and dangerous.
Average daily infections over a 7-day period fell to 2,700 as of Tuesday, as daily infections continued to fall from a record 26,032 infections on Feb. 22. Most of those infected in Singapore have mild or no symptoms.
The Southeast Asian country further eased Covid measures at the end of April. Social gatherings will no longer be limited to 10 people and people will not need to keep 1 meter apart.
People wearing face masks as a preventive measure against the spread of Covid-19 in Singapore.
In April, separate rules for unvaccinated people were also removed, with some exceptions.
Those who are not vaccinated will still not be allowed to dine in, or participate in events with more than 500 people. Neither can they visit nightlife establishments where dancing is involved.
However, food and beverage outlets won’t be required to check the vaccination statuses of customers, the health ministry said in a press release.
NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s top public health agency relaxed its COVID-19 guidelines Thursday, dropping the recommendation that Americans quarantine themselves if they come into close contact with an infected person.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said people no longer need to stay at least 6 feet away from others.
The changes, which come more than 2 1/2 years after the start of the pandemic, are driven by a recognition that an estimated 95% of Americans 16 and older have acquired some level of immunity, either from being vaccinated or infected, agency officials said.
“The current conditions of this pandemic are very different from those of the last two years,” said the CDC’s Greta Massetti, an author of the guidelines.
Many places around the country long ago abandoned social distancing and other once-common precautions, but some of the changes could be particularly important for schools, which resume classes this month in many parts of the country.
Perhaps the biggest education-related change is the end of the recommendation that schools do routine daily testing, although that practice can be reinstated in certain situations during a surge in infections, officials said.
The CDC also dropped a “test-to-stay” recommendation, which said students exposed to COVID-19 could regularly test — instead of quarantining at home — to keep attending school. With no quarantine recommendation anymore, the testing option disappeared too.
Masks continue to be recommended only in areas where community transmission is deemed high, or if a person is considered at high risk of severe illness.
School districts across the U.S. have scaled back their COVID-19 precautions in recent weeks even before the latest guidance was issued. Some have promised a return to pre-pandemic schooling.
Masks will be optional in most districts when classes resume this fall, and some of the nation’s largest districts have dialed back or eliminated COVID-19 testing requirements.
Public schools in Los Angeles are ending weekly COVID-19 tests, instead making at-home tests available to families, the district announced last week. Schools in North Carolina’s Wake County also dropped weekly testing.
Some others have moved away from test-to-stay programs that became unmanageable during surges of the omicron variant last school year.
The American Federation of Teachers, one of the nation’s largest teachers unions, said it welcomes the guidance.
“Every educator and every parent starts every school year with great hope, and this year even more so,” President Randi Weingarten said. “After two years of uncertainty and disruption, we need as normal a year as possible so we can focus like a laser on what kids need.”
The new recommendations prioritize keeping children in school as much as possible, said Joseph Allen, director of Harvard University’s healthy building program. Previous isolation policies forced millions of students to stay home from school, he said, even though the virus poses a relatively low risk to young people.
“Entire classrooms of kids had to miss school if they were deemed a close contact,” he said. “The closed schools and learning disruption have been devastating.”
Others say the CDC is going too far in relaxing its guidelines.
Allowing students to return to school five days after infection, without proof of a negative COVID-19 test, could lead to outbreaks in schools, said Anne Sosin, a public health researcher at Dartmouth College. That could force entire schools to close temporarily if teachers get sick in large numbers, a dilemma that some schools faced last year.
“All of us want a stable school year, but wishful thinking is not the strategy for getting there,” she said. “If we want a return to normal in our schools, we have to invest in the conditions for that, not just drop everything haphazardly like we’re seeing across the country.”
The average numbers of reported COVID-19 cases and deaths have been relatively flat this summer, at around 100,000 cases a day and 300 to 400 deaths.
The CDC previously said that if people who are not up to date on their COVID-19 vaccinations come into close contact with a person who tests positive, they should stay home for at least five days. Now the agency says quarantining at home is not necessary, but it urges those people to wear a high-quality mask for 10 days and get tested after five.
The agency continues to say that people who test positive should isolate from others for at least five days, regardless of whether they were vaccinated. CDC officials advise that people can end isolation if they are fever-free for 24 hours without the use of medication and they are without symptoms or the symptoms are improving.
Also on Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration updated its recommendations for how many times people exposed to COVID-19 should test.
Previously, the FDA had advised taking two rapid antigen tests over two or three days to rule out infection. Now the agency recommends three tests.
FDA officials said the change was based on new studies that suggest the old protocol can miss too many infections and result in people spreading the coronavirus, especially if they don’t develop symptoms.
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Binkley reported from Washington. Associated Press Health Writer Matthew Perrone in Washington contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
HONG KONG—The city’s government cut the Covid-19 quarantine period for inbound travelers to three days from seven, easing a restriction many saw as excessive but falling short of what businesses say is needed to restore the connectivity vital to its role as Asia’s leading global financial center.
From Friday, travelers arriving in Hong Kong will be allowed to leave their quarantine hotels after three days, officials said at a briefing Monday. Over the following four days, they won’t be allowed into places now requiring a vaccine pass, such as gyms, bars and restaurants, but they will be able to go to work, shop at supermarkets and use public transport, provided they test negative for the coronavirus.
The city has been caught between sticking to stringent antivirus controls in line with Beijing’s zero-Covid policy and trying to retain its appeal as an open and globally connected base for business. As most of the world returns to normal, Hong Kong’s border controls and the perceived risk that it may resort to mainland-style lockdowns and other measures have led to public frustration and prompted many skilled workers to leave.
About 80,000 tourists are stranded on the Chinese island of Hainan, which local authorities call “the Hawaii of China,” after a surge in Covid-19 cases triggered a lockdown. All flights leaving the city of Sanya have been canceled since Saturday. Photo: CCTV
While business groups welcomed any cut to quarantine time, they say the restrictions are eating into Hong Kong’s competitive edge as a global financial center and regional base for multinational companies.
“Although a move in the right direction, further reduction of quarantine will accelerate connectivity, reduce business costs for companies, and attract international investment into the city,” said Joseph Armas, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. “Ultimately, our members are hopeful for a zero quarantine or home quarantine direction as Hong Kong must reopen immediately and reconnect with other major cities.”
The shortened quarantine offers welcome relief to residents but is unlikely to benefit business travel or tourism, said
David Graham,
executive director of the British Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, a business lobby. A full lifting of quarantine controls is critical for Hong Kong’s economic and business outlook, he said.
Hong Kong’s recently appointed leader, John Lee, said the decision to shorten the quarantine was based on an assessment of the risk to public health, as well as lifestyle and economic considerations.
“It is a balance of factors,” Mr. Lee said. “While we can control the threat to public health, we also want to ensure society can have the maximum degree of economic and social activities so people can go about as normally as possible, and the competitiveness of Hong Kong can be maintained.”
Chief Executive John Lee, flanked by other officials at a briefing Monday, spoke of the need to maintain Hong Kong’s competitiveness.
Photo:
Lam Yik/Bloomberg News
The changes reflect the government’s reading of data showing that after three days people leaving quarantine pose no greater transmission threat than do others in the community. In contrast to the mainland’s no-tolerance policy on Covid cases, daily life has largely returned to normal in Hong Kong, with gyms and bars open—albeit with some restrictions, such as size of gatherings—even with thousands of new daily Covid cases.
While stringent isolation requirements—at one point last year, arrivals had to spend 21 days in hotel quarantine—had more support when the city had zero or very few cases, recent waves that resulted in tens of thousands of new infections every day made quarantine even more exasperating to people wanting to travel in and out of the city.
Mr. Lee and his team didn’t spell out a pathway to further reducing quarantine in the coming months. A crucial milestone comes in November, when Hong Kong plans to host a financial forum and its first Sevens in more than three years—a popular three-day rugby tournament that previously drew thousands of visitors each spring and coincided with conferences and other networking events. Even a truncated quarantine would likely be too much for these types of whirlwind trips to a city once famed for the ease and efficiency of its connections to the rest of the world.
More residents have flown out of Hong Kong’s airport than have arrived every month for the past year to July, with net departures of almost 120,000 in the first quarter of 2022, according to government data compiled by
David Webb,
a retired investment banker and longtime Hong Kong resident.
In a July 1 speech in Hong Kong, Chinese President
Xi Jinping
said that the city must retain its status as an international hub for the country. “The central government fully supports Hong Kong in its effort to maintain its distinctive status and edge, to improve its presence as an international financial, shipping and trading center, to keep its business environment free, open and regulated, and to maintain the common law, so as to expand and facilitate its exchanges with the world,” he said.
Pro-Beijing figures and government officials have since invoked Mr. Xi when pushing plans to open up to the rest of the world, ahead of any relaxation of border controls with the mainland—a goal of the previous administration. Mr. Lee said Monday that his team was still working to resume travel with the mainland.
After the Omicron variant of the coronavirus began to spread globally late last year, Singapore—Hong Kong’s perennial rival as the leading global financial center in Asia—laid out a clear road map from the Covid crisis and gradually removed all travel restrictions.
Singapore has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Hong Kong’s isolation, with more executives and their families relocating to the city along with some of the marquee events that were another pillar of Hong Kong’s appeal. While many of those moves may prove temporary, the question facing Hong Kong’s leaders now is how to lure people back before the shift becomes permanent.
The shortened quarantine follows earlier easing measures, including the scrapping of a policy to suspend airline routes if a flight carried a certain number of Covid-positive passengers to the city. Visitors and returning residents must still provide proof of a negative PCR test result 48 hours before they board, along with vaccination proof. Unvaccinated visitors face a longer quarantine period.
They must also conduct a rapid test every day until the tenth day of their arrival in the city, along with five PCR tests during that period, according to details published late Monday. Passengers who are allowed to fly without being vaccinated, previously subject to a longer quarantine in Hong Kong, will also follow the “3+4” model, the government said.
Unpredictable availability of quarantine hotels, and a rule barring anyone who is confirmed as a Covid-19 case within two weeks of their flight, have added complexity to travel plans. After Monday’s announcement, many businesses and lobby groups called for the government to urgently provide a road map to zero quarantine.
“Only by jettisoning the word ‘quarantine’ altogether can we really rebuild HK Inc.’s brand,” said Sally Wong, chief executive of the Hong Kong Investment Funds Association. “Many activities such as conferences and meetings are planned months ahead and if the government can throw light on the next step, it would be extremely helpful.”
Hong Kong is reducing the amount of time travelers will need to serve hotel quarantine, from seven days down to three starting Friday.
“The seven-day quarantine hotel arrangement will be changed to three days in a quarantine hotel, plus four days of home medical surveillance,” Chief Executive John Lee said at a press conference Monday.
After completing the hotel quarantine, travelers can stay at home or in a hotel for the four days of surveillance. During this period people will be able to leave their place of residence, but cannot enter “places where there is active checking of vaccine passes,” Lee said in Cantonese.
That includes bars, pubs, gyms and beauty parlors. People are also not allowed to visit nursing homes, schools and specified medical premises during the surveillance period.
“They cannot participate in any activities where masks are to be taken off,” Lee added. If they test negative on a rapid antigen test, they can take public transportation, go to work and enter shopping malls, he said.
“We have to strike a balance between risk level as well as our economic activity. Where risks could be controlled, we want to preserve maximum movement of people and to maintain Hong Kong’s competitiveness,” Lee said.
Approximately 20 people are in quarantine over concerns they are contacts of persons infected with the monkeypox virus.
There are now three confirmed cases of monkeypox in Jamaica, one of which was locally transmitted, while the other two are classified as imported.
Jamaica’s first monkeypox patient was identified on July 5.
Minister of Health, Dr. Christopher Tufton, told The Gleaner in an interview, on Sunday, that it was still unconfirmed whether the first patient has recovered and been released, but some of his contacts are still in quarantine.
“Some of those have been released. I can’t tell you the exact number. [For] the other two cases, we still have some people in quarantine,” he said.
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A man wearing a protective mask, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, walks past an electronic board displaying graphs (top) of Nikkei index outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, March 10, 2022. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
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HONG KONG, June 28 (Reuters) – Asian shares swung into positive territory in afternoon trade on Tuesday, propelled by China’s decision to ease some quarantine requirements for international arrivals, with Hong Kong stocks particularly supported.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) was up 0.5%, having spent most of the day in the red. The index has fallen 3.8% so far this month.
Health authorities said on Tuesday that China will halve to seven days its COVID-19 quarantine period for visitors from overseas, with a further three days spent at home. read more
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Following the news, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index (.HSI) reversed its losses and jumped 0.85% in afternoon trade.
In China, the blue-chip CSI300 index (.CSI300) was 1% higher, also having clawed back earlier losses.
The sharp change in mood looked set to last into the global day with the pan-region Euro Stoxx 50 futures up 0.31%, German DAX futures 0.2% higher and FTSE futures climbing 0.47%. U.S. stock futures rose 0.46%.
“With local new infections dropping further in June, and COVID curbs to ease more, we expect the (Chinese) economy to continue to recover,” BofA said in its note. “That said, given soft domestic demand and lingering COVID uncertainties, the mending path is likely to be bumpy in the coming months.”
Market sentiment was also boosted by an official’s remarks that Beijing would roll out tools to cope with economic challenges as COVID-19 outbreaks and risks from the Ukraine war pose a threat to employment and price stability. read more
Australian shares (.AXJO) were up 0.86%, while Japan’s Nikkei stock index (.N225) rose 0.66%.
U.S. stocks ended a volatile trading session slightly lower on Monday with few catalysts to sway investor sentiment as they approach the half-way point of a year in which equity markets have been slammed by heightened inflation worries and tightening Fed policy.
Interest rate sensitive megacaps such as Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) were the heaviest drags on the U.S. main indexes.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (.DJI) fell 0.2%, the S&P 500 (.SPX) lost 0.30% and the Nasdaq Composite (.IXIC) dropped 0.72%.
Oil continued to rise with investors still weighing worries about an economic slowdown against concerns over lost Russian supply amid sanctions related to the conflict in Ukraine.
U.S. crude ticked up 1.02% to $110.69 a barrel. Brent crude rose to $116.42 per barrel.
“A seam of tight supply news bolstered the (oil) market,” said analysts at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. “Political unrest might curtail supply from a couple of second-tier producers, Ecuador and Libya. And then there’s the G7’s proposed price cap on Russian oil.”
In bond markets, Treasury yields climbed on Monday following capital and durable goods orders data and as pending home sales surprised to the upside from the previous month.
The yield on benchmark 10-year Treasury notes last reached 3.1828% on Tuesday, compared with its U.S. close of 3.194% on Monday. The two-year yield , which rises with traders’ expectations of higher Fed fund rates, touched 3.0934%.
Also, the dollar edged lower versus major rivals as investors weighed expectations on inflation and interest rate hikes. The dollar index , which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies of other major trading partners, was down at 103.96.
Gold was slightly higher with the spot price trading at $1,825.79 per ounce.
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Reporting by Julie Zhu; Editing by Sam Holmes
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.