It’s also a good idea to download the HK Government’s StayHomeSafe app onto your phone before you travel. You’ll need this immediately so you don’t want to be fiddling about with changing over your mobile service provider. A really rude tall man pushed past me on his hurry to get off the plane and I had to laugh because he had hadn’t done this and was held up at the first checkpoint where they ask to see your QR code and your app.

You’re shepherded onto the shuttle train that now stops only in the airport’s central concourse in Gates 200+. I noticed that the Covid quarantine directions amended on the shuttle train and on the various handouts we were given were in Putonghua and English only, and there certainly seem to be a lot of people all waiting to help you through the process. I think that China and Hong Kong have thrown a lot of resources behind the efforts to stop the further spread of CV19. Indeed for a long time we had only 4 deaths in a population of 7.5 million. Our second and third spikes were cases imported from the rest of the world.

There are several stops and checkpoints after your arrival at the 200 Gates, where the authorities fasten your quarantine bracelet around your wrist and then check and double check your QR code and your app and issue you with several pieces of paper, permission forms, quarantine orders and quarantine instructions. You brandish these in the socially-distanced queues to see a whole series of PPE clad officials who issue you with your quarantine order, which you keep to hand in with your test samples near the end of this shepherding process. 

I was glad here that I acquired the ability to go into self-disciplined Zen mode which I cultivated when travelling around China for work 30 years ago. Yes, we’re all tired and fractious after a long overnight flight but arguing with officials will not help you in any way. We’re all in the same boat. Make sure you charge your phone on the plane or have a book for the queues because you could spend an hour being processed before you take your test sample.

Eventually you’re given a pack containing a little phial and a funnel for the sample taking and sterile wipes. You also receive  instructions on how to provide the saliva sample. A QR code is available  on a banner to receive a link to a YouTube instruction video and then you go off into a little booth to sanitise your hands and provide the sample.

Now, this was the bit that worried me. You’re left to your own devices to hoik up a “deep throat” saliva sample. There isn’t anyone there with a swab to help you. This Kraaa noise you make is familiar to people in India and East Asia for whom it forms a part of their morning ablution routine but it’s not something that Westerners do generally, I think. I was therefore nervous about this and started overcompensating to salivate but I just started to retch when it came to it. It’s a good idea to bring a bottle of water from the plane to rehydrate yourself enough to do this – it’s not provided by this stage of the process. I do wonder whether this method actually succeeds for many people in eliciting the deep throat sample required and I wonder how many false negative tests show up as a result. Perhaps that’s why we have the subsequent 14 day quarantine.

Having done all of this, you wrap up the sample as directed in the ziplock bags provided and hand it in at the next check station, where they give you a bottle of water and a couple of snacks and then show you to your place in a holding area at what used to be a departure gate, where you’re corralled with the other people on your flight. It’s like an examination hall in format: you have a chair and a table in front of you and all of these tables and chairs are in socially distanced rows. You’re not allowed to move your chair in case you break social distancing rules. And then you sit. And wait. And wait.

And wait.

You can read your information booklet to read while you wait for the result of your test, which usually takes several hours. It really is the last thing you want to do after a long flight but it does help if you’ve prepared yourself beforehand. Again, make sure your phone is charged in advance as there are limited charging facilities at these holding areas. Take a book or two. I had started Girl, Woman, Other, and that kept me diverted for ages. A puzzle book or some crochet might help too. I was warned to take an inflatable mattress, and a man a little way away from me did in fact stretch one of these out under his table and go to sleep but I think it would be likely to interfere with the social distancing if everyone did it and I would never have been able to sleep like this.

Buy snacks to divert yourself. The normal airport shops and coffee places are shut and you’re actively discouraged from wandering around, although inevitably there are the usual old HK hands who don’t think the rules apply to them. You can go to the loo, of course and there are several on this concourse.

Loads of staff are on hand, all dressed in maximum PPE and so not very approachable. Everyone is hushed, silent, almost, and there’s this overriding feeling of resignation, that we all just have to get through this.

Eventually, 7 hours later for me – 10 for John a few days before – staff come and tell you that your test result is negative (hopefully) and you’re free to go and pick up your bags and go back to start your home quarantine. You do this by public transport but if you take a taxi you’re encouraged to write down the licence plate number in case it needs to be tracked later if your test is a false negative and you develop the virus. There have been cases of taxi drivers contracting the virus.

I walked with my suitcases from the bus down Seabee Lane to our house fully aware that this was the last outside air I’d be breathing for a couple of weeks.

You’re given detailed instructions about maintaining your quarantine at home and isolating yourself from the other members of your household. John had actually been with me in the UK so we didn’t  feel the need to isolate completely in separate rooms all the time but as his quarantine was over several days before mine, we wore masks all the time, even at night, and kept our distance when in the same room. Some people stay in one room and have their meals brought to them.

You activate the app on your phone when you arrive home and walk through the dimensions of your living space. John had already done this for our house so they had the details on file. The authorities notify you through the app when they want you to scan the QR code on your bracelet to make sure you’re still at home and not venturing outside. (There have been some cases of people hiding their bracelets under clothes and going out to eat, and passing on the virus to other diners.) They don’t do this every day but there was one day where I had to scan my QR code three times.

About half way through the quarantine, you receive a friendly phone call asking you if everything is going ok and generally checking up on whether you’ve developed any symptoms. You have to keep a written record of your temperature twice a day and any other symptoms of unwellness.

I had planned my quarantine reasonably well, with choir music to learn and knitting and crochet projects to continue. Luckily I’d anticipated not being able to go to the gym by buying a treadmill and this exercise helped with any insomnia I might have suffered because of lack of exercise. I walked on the days I didn’t run and listened to an audiobook about the Stuarts. I’ve even been able to enjoy the resumption by Zoom of two of my choirs.

Then, on day 10, you have to give another sample, which has to be dropped off at a test centre in town by a friend or family member or your helper. There are courier service that offer to do this but unfortunately they don’t provide this service to Discovery Bay. I fretted for a couple of days about giving this second saliva sample, which you take in the morning before you’ve eaten or drunk anything or brushed your teeth. You’re given all the materials to collect this sample with your information pack and quarantine order on leaving the airport holding area.

Having provided this sample you then wait for three more days. If you don’t hear to the contrary from the authorities then you are free to end your quarantine on the 14th day and they actually send you a text to confirm this.

 My quarantine ended at midnight last night and at first it feel strange going out into the heat and humidity and the general background NOISE that dominates the built-hop parts of Hong Kong. I’d become used to being cocooned in the quiet of the house and having a valid excuse not to have to go to the shops or even go out in the garden and pick up after the dogs, so it didn’t really feel as if a weight had been lifted. I did enjoy cutting off my bracelet though, and deleting the app from my phone and tomorrow I’ll venture into town and have my hair cut. It needs attention. I did not.

I should add here that this week the quarantine rules have changed and that the UK has now been placed on the High Risk country list, which means that anyone arriving here will first have to have a negative Covid test result from within 72 hours of  departure and will also need to show a two week quarantine booking for self-isolation at a hotel because isolating at home is no longer deemed safe enough. I hope this changes but that will depend on the UK government and the numptier UK citizens showing more responsibility towards each other. I wait in hope.