The future of Florida’s Disney World is the subject of much speculation this week after its parent corporation decided to meddle in politics and met unexpectedly stiff resistance, but Disney can take some solace in knowing its Hong Kong park reopened on Thursday after three months of coronavirus shutdown, and the response from Hong Kong patrons was very positive.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that “enthusiastic visitors ran into Disneyland the moment the gates opened,” eager to return to what parents and children described as their favorite “happy place.”
Hong Kong Disney is not completely reopened yet. City officials are allowing theme parks to operate at half capacity, and visitors are urged to maintain social distancing practices. A few other popular attractions, such as the SeaWorld-like Ocean Park, have reopened under similar restrictions.
Numerous other restrictions were eased on April 14, including permission for salons, gyms, and movie theaters to reopen at 50 percent capacity. Restaurants can now seat four people per table, and neighborhood gatherings are no longer restricted to two houses maximum.
“To relax these measures, to allow some degree of normal activities in society, with more interactions among citizens, inevitably they will come with some transmission risks,” outgoing Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam conceded.
Lam asserted Hong Kong is “much, much better prepared” to handle a new coronavirus wave, thanks to higher vaccination percentages and more treatment facilities.
The AP observed that Hong Kong occupies a curious position in China’s ongoing coronavirus lockdown horror: the semi-autonomous island still has an omicron outbreak in progress, albeit much improved from its peak of 30,000 cases in March to about 1,200 cases today, but it never locked down as severely as Shanghai, and Hong Kong residents have grown weary of even their relatively soft quarantine.
Hong Kong’s reluctance to adhere to Beijing’s maniacal “zero-Covid” policies earned it condemnations from angry mainlanders who blamed it for spreading the omicron variant to nearby cities. Top Communist officials, including dictator Xi Jinping, urged Hong Kong to take stricter measures to get its outbreak under control.
Even so, Hong Kong residents have been fleeing in droves, fearing both pandemic restrictions and Communist Party ideological crackdowns. Official immigration data shows some 66,000 people leaving each month, an exodus driven by what a real-estate consultant described last week as “a collective loss of patience at anti-pandemic measures.” Expatriates are heading for Australia, Canada, Taiwan, the United Kingdom (Hong Kong’s former controlling power), and the somewhat similar financial hub city of Singapore.
On Friday, the city government announced it would allow foreigners to resume inbound flights next month, lifting an entry ban that has been in place for almost two years. Visitors will be required to submit to multiple coronavirus tests, one of which will require them to spend seven days in hotel quarantine until the results come in.