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Reuters
Hong Kong’s incentive-laden plan to boost its sluggish Covid-19 vaccination uptake has prompted an outcry from some of the sectors most affected by the looming rules changes.
Hailing it as a “new direction in fighting the pandemic”, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Monday (April 12) unveiled a “vaccine bubble” scheme that would allow for the easing of numerous social-distancing measures, including changes tied explicitly to Covid-19 vaccinations.
The plan, which aims to push the city towards eventual herd immunity, will give vaccinated residents greater freedom to dine out in bigger groups, travel abroad and visit care homes.
The Drinks Business
24 February 2021 By Alice Liang
Representatives from the Hong Kong bar industry gathered at a press conference on 21 February and urged the government to allow them reopen. In the last six months alone 210 bars in the region have closed, accounting for 15% of the entire industry.
Since late November 2020, Hong Kong was under the shadow of the fourth wave of the pandemic and the government tightened the social distancing measures once again by cutting off restaurants’ dine-in service time at 6 pm and shuttering the operations of bars entirely.
As the situation is getting contained lately, the government lifted the regulations and allowed restaurants to extend their dine-in services from 6pm to 10pm from 18 February. Venues like gyms, cinema and amusement parks can also resume operations, but not bars and pubs.
Over a year into the pandemic, we ve often found ourselves collectively turning to creature comforts and nostalgia as a balm against the harsh reality of social distancing, gathering bans, and the heavy social and economic toll of it all. And within the world of F&B, perhaps no sector has been more hard-hit than the bar industry, with a sobering recent survey by the Hong Kong Bar & Club Association revealing that another 70 bars are expected to shut for good in the wake of the Lunar New Year holiday, joining the 140 that had already done so in 2020.
Needless to say that, in the face of the most devastating times Hong Kong s bar industry has ever seen, those in the drinks business are undergoing a soul-searching on how to keep calm and carry on. An early consensus is emerging on the importance of the bar first and foremost as a place for people to come together and create lasting bonds, with drinks and food coming in second to this end, the past few months have seen a number of mod