Waving and cheering like survivors of a disaster, 200 guests of a Hong Kong business hotel who were confined for more than a week due to swine flu left the building Friday.
Businessmen, families and tourists marched out of the Hong Kong Metropark Hotel in the Wanchai bar district at 8:30 p.m. (8:30 a.m. ET) Friday when the quarantine was lifted. Dragging luggage and carrying purses and backpacks, they were applauded and cheered by hotel workers and local officials, who formed a receiving line to send them off. Throngs of photographers and reporters stood behind metal barricades to capture images of their departure. Watch guests leave the hotel Surprisingly, the majority took up the government’s offer of free accommodation at two other hotels so they could see the city they never got to visit. The confinement was imposed May 1, after a 25-year-old guest from Mexico tested positive for the H1N1 virus, the technical name for swine flu. Hong Kong health officials — unwilling to see a repeat of the SARS epidemic in 2004 that killed nearly 300 people — placed the hotel on lockdown.
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Deputy Director of Home Affairs Adeline Wong said in a statement that after a final medical check, hotel guests would be given medical certificates allowing them to travel. They were offered transport to the airport and other locations, according to their needs, and were also offered two free nights in another hotel in Hong Kong if they wished, officials said. But the hotel is not open for business as usual after the departure of their current guests. The building will be closed for intense cleaning and disinfecting, according to Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health, Dr. York Chow. About 100 hotel staff members were also confined to the premises due to the quarantine. Images from a British hotel guest ยป During that time, many guests stayed cocooned in their tiny rooms, flipping through channels on the television or staying connected with their work colleagues via Internet chats. They all had to take a 10-day dose of anti-viral medication. None tested positive for the virus. With no pool to lounge by and just one restaurant to pick from, guests milled about in the lobby to pick up food or get their temperatures taken once a day.
“We go down to the lobby for food and then back to the room to eat your food,” Leslie Carr, a British man, said Thursday. Outside, bars and clubs lay only a short walk away. But police in face masks guarded the doors, barring exit, as packs of reporters and camera crews peered through the hotel’s glass windows.
