Vaccinated Night Owls can Party

Vaccinated diners can sit six to a table until midnight

Remember what it was like being in a bar? Or a nightclub, or karaoke lounge?

Finally after over four months, or basically a year of opening and closing, bars are allowed to re-open on April 29 until 2am and only two people per table. Karaoke lounges can have four people.

Night owls and wannabe warblers must be rejoicing! 

Cheung (centre) says government made concessions

However, all staff and customers must have had at least one dose of the vaccine. If staff claim medical reasons, they must fill out a government declaration form explaining why they can't get the jab, and be subjected to regular testing.

Executive councillor and lawmaker Tommy Cheung Yu-yan, who represents the catering sector, said the reopening of bars would be reviewed every two weeks.

"The permanent secretary for food and health told us that if there were a lot of staff from the bar industry who cited medical reasons for failing to take the shots, further restrictions would not be ruled out," he said.

"For patrons who would like to visit bars, they have to get at least one vaccine jab."

He also said as government restrictions ease, the authorities are backing down on its insistence that all bars, restaurants, nightclubs and karaoke lounges must make their customers use the LeaveHomeSafe app. 

Zeman says the new measures are "baby steps"

Cheung said the government originally only wanted bars to open until midnight, but made concessions to allow them to operate until 2am to give bars a chance to survive (belatedly).

It's hard to see how the government can implement "vaccine bubbles" in restaurants, (four to a table until 10pm if not vaccinated and six to a table till midnight if vaccinated) when many are tiny eateries where you can't really social distance at all. 

Nevertheless, one of the happiest people today was Lan Kwai Fong Group chairman Allan Zeman upon hearing the latest relaxing of measures. He said the government's "baby step" was a good start for the bar industry.

"The good thing is they listened to the industry and allowed businesses to open until 2am, which is a very important step... The important thing is for everyone to be safe," he said.

More jabs means less LeaveHomeSafe app

Today was also the first day those 16-29 years old could sign up for the BioNTech vaccine. One would have thought those spots would be filled up quickly, but except for the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital, there's still many spots available.

Come on Hong Kong! What are you waiting for? The faster we all get jabs, more restrictions will be lifted. Or even better, there would be no need to use the LeaveHomeSafe app.

How about making that our end goal?