Thousands of Hong Kong hotel rooms secured as community isolation facilities for Covid-19 patients with mild symptoms have mostly been left unused, with the city’s leader vowing to redesignate the space for other purposes.

The government in February secured more than 23,000 isolation units across 18 hotels and eight makeshift facilities for people who test positive for the coronavirus but do not have suitable accommodation for home isolation.

The Security Bureau, tasked to procure the isolation units, said in an email reply to the Post that the occupancy rate of such facilities was more than 50 per cent as of Friday.

People arrive for their quarantine at Dorsett Hotel in Tsuen Wan.

In a press briefing on Saturday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor admitted the occupancy rate of premises for the quarantine of close contacts of Covid-19 patients was also low, after a change of policy allowing close contacts of Covid-19 patients to quarantine at home since early February.

“We have agreed to turn some of them, especially the hotels, into isolation facilities for Covid-19 patients and overseas arrivals,” she said.

She also revealed that the government had in all engaged 30 hotels for conversion into isolation facilities for patients, but not all of the establishments were on board with the plan as it took time to get some long-stay guests to vacate.

Lam declined to disclose details of contractual agreements with the hotels, including how much each hotel was paid monthly.

“If the hotel has joined the scheme, then they have to use the whole building. We cannot accept a situation in which there are infected customers and non-infected people living in the same hotel,” she said.

Carrie Lam with ministers at her daily presser on Saturday.

However, a source who operates three properties under the community isolation facility scheme said occupancy was “very low”, adding that retired police officers and civil servants tasked to run the venues “were not doing a good job”.

“To be honest, the occupancy rate at such facilities is really low but we cannot make public the exact figure,” the source said.

“It’s a waste of taxpayers money. Even if infected patients can choose their isolation facility when reporting results online for their rapid antigen test (RAT), ultimately the government may allocate them [somewhere else]. We have no say on who gets sent to isolate in hotels or at government-run facilities,” the source added.

Authorities have created a two-tier system to procure hotel rooms for isolation, paying HK$1,000 per unit nightly for the whole property if the operator chooses to let the government run the service. This fee is HK$1,600 if the hotel keeps operations in-house.

Meanwhile, only 11 people – occupying just 1.6 per cent of available units – were sent for quarantine at government centres after being deemed close contacts of patients, according to data from the Centre for Health Protection as of Friday.

The government has activated 673 units at the Junior Police Call Permanent Activity Centre in Yuen Long, Sai Kung Outdoor Recreation Centre, Grand City Hotel in Sai Ying Pun and Silka Far East Hotel in Tsuen Wan. The latter two quarantine centres had zero occupancy as of Friday.

In a related development, complaints from long-stay tenants continued to mount on Saturday at Bay Bridge Lifestyle Retreat in Tsuen Wan. The occupants claimed they were asked to move out at short notice with the property also joining the community isolation facility scheme.

Tenants had ­previously been asked to leave by March 15 but refused, as they failed to reach an agreement with hotel management on compensation. On Saturday morning, the hotel offered a deal equivalent to the amount of remaining rent on their leases, and asked them to leave by noon.

The tenants said electricity and water supply was cut and a notice was put up at the hotel lobby announcing that only staff were allowed to enter the premises.

In a response to the Post’s inquiry, Lam said she did not receive any complaints from hotels or tenants over the issue, adding she was told the best way was to transfer long-stay tenants to superior hotels to reach a more “amicable arrangement”.