Editorial | Hong Kong gym outbreak again underlines need to exercise caution
- Covid-19 flare-up at Hong Kong facility appears to be the result of people not having to wear masks and raises fears that a fifth wave of the epidemic may be on the way
Call it an oversight or yet another loophole in social-distancing measures, but Hong Kong is again gripped by a serious Covid-19 outbreak. Centred on a gym in Sai Ying Pun, the cluster on Friday accounted for 47 cases that contributed to a dramatic surge in the city’s daily number of infections to 60.
Whether it heralds a fifth wave of the epidemic, as some experts are suggesting, is irrelevant; what matters is that for all our experience with the disease, a foolproof approach to containing its spread has still not been formulated.
The super-spreading event at Ursus Fitness seemingly resulted from instructors and customers not wearing masks. They were not required to; authorities had exempted people from wearing masks if doing vigorous exercise, even in indoor public places.
This is despite Covid-19 being spread by people exhaling and that being more pronounced when they are exercising. Belatedly, the government has reinstated the requirement of mask-wearing. All gym staff in the city have been ordered to have a coronavirus test by Sunday.
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The oversight has been highly disruptive; in addition to the staff and customers who have tested positive and the gym’s closure for deep cleaning, 240 people who visited recently have had to be quarantined. Some were believed to be bankers, lawyers and educators, and offices and colleagues have been affected.
Mandatory testing orders have meant lockdowns at the scores of buildings where they live. That so many are involved is worrying given their jobs – they are likely to have come into contact with numerous other people.