A woman walks to the departure hall of Shenzhen Bay Port Hong Kong Port Area on Feb 8, 2020. (PHILIP FONG / AFP)
A total 391 Hong Kong students had signed up by 7 am on Wednesday for assistance to facilitate their trips to their respective schools on the Chinese mainland.
The news came less than a day after the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government announced new measures to prioritize students needing quarantine hotels, and to arrange more flights for them to the mainland.
The new measures, announced by the government on Tuesday afternoon, include putting students returning to mainland schools in the “compassionate quotas” for quarantine hotels, and increasing more flights between Hong Kong and the mainland. These students will enjoy priority status when booking flight tickets. Currently, 2,000 quarantine hotel places in Shenzhen are available every day through a lottery system.
The government is also discussing with Macao the possibility of allowing mainland-bound students to be quarantined there first
The government is also discussing with Macao the possibility of allowing mainland-bound students to be quarantined there first.
Revealing the figure on Wednesday at a local radio program, Deputy Secretary for Education Esmond Lee Chung-sin said that 85 percent of the 101 applications received on Tuesday were from students planning to travel to the mainland by land, while 15 percent intend to go by air.
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Over half, or 58, of the 101 applications involve students going to Guangdong province, while another 13 plan to go to Fujian province.
Lee said the Education Bureau will inform students as soon as possible once their identities are confirmed, and he urged them to be ready as they may have as little as one day’s notice before their trip.
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