Pew-pew woo-hoo! Hong Kong reopens video arcades shut by coronavirus lockdown

Hong Kong will reopen video game arcades as the city begins to ease its pandemic precautions and attempts to kick its economy into a higher gear. The new guidelines, announced yesterday, will allow bars, gyms, beauty salons, cinemas and "amusement game centres" to resume business on Friday with some restrictions. In arcades, …

[PhilipN]

Dense city

Where 99% have been wearing masks since January, not because the Government said so but because they saw the need. Not so dense.

And by the way the tangential effect was a foreshortening of the usual flu season.

[MacroRodent]

Re: Dense city

It sees to me many in the far east cities wear masks anyway, as a custom that was established long before coronavirus. In Helsinki, Japanese and Chinese visitors were the only people seen wearing masks before corona times.

[Richard Crossley]

Re: Dense city

Hong Kong has done remarkably well, I guess that was the impact of SARS being recalled.

The Hong Kong Government dragged it's heals for quite a while and wouldn't even address the issue of the border between HK and China remaining open when everyone wanted it closed. I believe medical workers even striked over that.

Icon, now is the time for a cold one.

[. 3]

Re: Dense city

Mask wearing in China to prevent the spread of disease apparently dates all the way back to the aftermath of the Spanish 'flu around 1920. If you have a cold it is customary to wear a mask in public so you don't pass in on.

[Unicornpiss]

My takaway from this..

..is that there's a country that still has video arcades? Wow.

Kudos to them for taking precautions as they have, but it still seems a bit early to be reopening on this scale. Are they going to sanitize the games between players? Some of the arcade machines could be pretty disgusting as I recall, back in the day..

[Lazar]

Re: My takaway from this..

To be honest, the games arcade in Hong Kong are mainly places for triads and other unsavoury people to hang out for the past 2 decades or so. It's not saying that there aren't legit arcades but they are a minority.

More popular places like Jumpin Gym U.S.A. where simple style arcades which give out rewards in the form of tickets to swap for prizes, alongside token based pachinko style games which are very popular with OAPS.

[Anonymous Coward]

Testing

Beyond the face mask culture and social distancing, "The government has tested all arrivals to the city and quarantined those who tested positive."

How many Western counties are doing that?

[Lazar]

Re: Testing

Well, the Hong Kong government has pretty much stopped all non Hong Kong residents from coming to the country, even if it's for transfer to another flight.

Visitors to Hong Kong had dropped massively so quarantining those who are flying in isn't too much of a problem.