Coronavirus: Hong Kong’s foreign domestic workers will have to be vaccinated before contracts can be renewed
- Tough new policy in response to emergence of coronavirus variants in city means helpers applying for work visas from overseas will have to be vaccinated first
- Domestic workers in Hong Kong have also been ordered to undergo mandatory Covid-19 testing by May 9
The tough new policy in response to the worrying emergence of coronavirus variants in the city means domestic helpers applying for work visas from overseas will have to be vaccinated first, with details to be announced later by labour and immigration authorities.
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The compulsory testing and vaccination announcement sparked an uproar among the city’s 370,000 domestic workers, with a union leader accusing the authorities of being “discriminatory” and “blackmailing” them into getting inoculated.
Authorities imposed the new rule a day after a 39-year-old domestic worker was confirmed to be the first untraceable case of a mutated strain contracted locally, prompting the quarantine of 950 people from a residential block in Tung Chung. All of them tested negative.
The other domestic worker was confirmed to be infected with a variant last Friday after having arrived recently from the Philippines.