Two families who arrived in Hong Kong from South Africa are being quarantined in govt camps just heard that the ruling for their case is being deferred for the second time, to Wednesday. They tell me both deferrals were made because the government came unprepared. #covid19
The South African families arrived hours after I did on Thursday. After testing negative, I was able to come home. They, on the other hand, were taken to a government quarantine camp, where they say conditions are filthy. 
Arrivals from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and South Africa are not allowed to quarantine at home. The govt says that arrivals from those countries are at higher risk of being infected. But the extra measures don't apply to arrivals from the top 10 most-affected countries.
Those 5 countries are currently ranked #11, #20, #29, #133 and #39 in the world in terms of # of confirmed cases. But the department of health says it singled out those 5 countries because of their low testing rates.
One of the couples has a 26-mo-old. The other couple is traveling with three girls, aged 22mo, 7 and 9 and their domestic worker.
They say that the floor is dirty, with dead insects and even blood stains, and that their feet turn black just from walking around.
They don't have wi-fi or any means of heating food. They said the food was disgusting. At first, they weren't allowed to have food delivered but they're now allowed to receive food. One of the men has high blood pressure and is worried about his health.
Here's a video of the conditions
I spoke to someone else who had arrived from Pakistan on April 30. He and his family were taken to another camp. They had to switch rooms bc there were used tissues under the bed. The govt received so many complaints about the food that they switched suppliers a few days in.
He said that sometimes, the food was served cold. They only had 1 fan for the family, but they were given more upon request. Incredibly, they had no A/C -- in MAY in Hong Kong. They did have wi-fi though.
Hong Kong has a long history of systematically treating people of South Asian, SE ASian or African origin like second class citizens. The passengers I spoke to suspected that racism had to do with the policy. The government denies that "ethnicity" has anything to do with it.
The science behind the department of health's reasoning is debatable. I don't see how someone coming from the UK is less likely to have the virus than someone coming from South Africa, considering that 404 out of HK's 1054 cases were imported from the UK.
Regardless of the reasoning used, I'm pretty certain about one thing: the HK govt knew that they'd be more likely to get away with providing subpar conditions in quarantine camps for people coming from those 5 countries than say, the US, Russia, UK or Western Europe.
Tune into @VICETV at 11pm EST on Monday for my full story on #VICENewsTonight.
