The second line of defence, for all passengers from countries on Hong Kong’s highest-risk tier – like the United States, from which I arrived – is a week in compulsory confinement and daily testing in the Penny’s Bay government centre.

If they haven’t caught a passenger with Covid-19 by then, two more weeks in a hotel and more testing ensnares virtually all the other cases among travellers. (The government adjusted the policy to four days at Penny’s Bay, 17 days at a hotel this week, though only for new arrivals).

This ultra-strict blockade has effectively prevented local coronavirus outbreaks and allowed Hongkongers to maintain some semblance of normalcy amid the global pandemic. With some guidelines – wearing masks and using the “Leave Home Safe” app to check in to pubs, for example – we are able to go to work in our offices, dine in restaurants, drink in bars, shop in stores and go to the cinema. We do all this more or less free from the worry of getting infected.

But if you are one of those taking one for the side in quarantine, it’s a slightly less upbeat experience. There is much to be desired when you are the solo traveller facing the gauntlet of confinement, monotonous food and playing the testing guinea pig in a 16 x 8 cage for a week, without the benefit of a hamster wheel to exercise.

The numbers quickly start to stack up in a week. That’s seven PCR tests or 28 swabs – two pokes for counts of 10 up each nostril and two separate swabs on each side of the inner throat each day. That’s 21 airline meals delivered to your door, and about 35 bottles of water, some of which for me went into 14 cups of coffee.

There were also seven swept and mopped floors (OK, OK, maybe it was three). Two loads of handwashed laundry taking 60 hours each to dry in the cool damp Hong Kong winter – perhaps assisted by the first typhoon signal in December in 47 years.

There would have been 27 sets of high-intensity workouts, but one twisted ankle put a stop to that. And so instead there was 1,000ml of Scotch. (Ahem: Meted out over a week, not all at once).

In my previous 21-day hotel quarantine stay, I received six text messages with negative PCR results within 24 hours of testing. I have received zero such texts at Penny’s Bay, so the only way I know I’ve tested negative is that they have not hauled me off to a government hospital yet.

After release from here, we’re not even done with quarantine. I still must complete the remaining 14 of 21 days in isolation at a government-designated hotel in Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island.

The testing continues in the hotel and, presuming two tests per week and one for good measure the week after I get out, I will have been swabbed for PCR tests a grand total of 13 times between December 13, the first in Los Angeles, and January 10, the last in Causeway Bay.

There will be three public holidays in lock-up. Like my fellow passengers who arrived on December 16, I will be wishing myself a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in another cell, albeit a much more pleasant one in a hotel. Boxing Day is in between.

Finally, I enjoyed one extraordinary act of kindness at Penny’s Bay. On Day 6, a pizza was delivered to my door with a note from a group of Hong Kong volunteers from Cathay Pacific who have been providing relief to air flight, cabin and air cargo crew members who have found themselves in compulsory quarantine at Penny’s Bay after being exposed to Covid-19.

Serving 23 others in Penny’s Bay, they threw in a pizza for me, a heartfelt gesture that cut through the gloom of being pent up alone during the holiday season.

Meanwhile, as my parole nears, there’s still time to play a medley of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues, Elvis Presley’s Jailhouse Rock and the Band’s I Shall Be Released a few more times before I’m sprung from Penny’s Bay tomorrow.

Up next: Off to my halfway house in Aberdeen.