Advertisement
Coronavirus pandemic
Hong KongHealth & Environment

Hong Kong health officials race to contain growing Covid-19 cluster linked to commercial building after five more cases confirmed

  • Everyone working on sixth floor of Transport City Building in Tai Wai will need to be quarantined, health officials say
  • Four previous cases have been tied to the building, which houses a mixture of businesses including restaurants

Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0
Nine cases in total have now been linked to Transport City Building in Tai Wai. Photo: SCMP
Elizabeth Cheung,Victor TingandGigi Choy
Health authorities are racing to contain a growing coronavirus cluster tied to an industrial building in northern Hong Kong after five cases involving workers or their close contacts were among 11 new infections confirmed on Monday.

The discovery came as a much-beloved annual fire dragon dance, a tradition that began as an attempt to ward off a 19th century plague, was cancelled over the potential health risks posed to the public.

The cases at Transport City Building in Tai Wai were uncovered through contact tracing and the city’s free mass screening programme, for which more than 1.19 million residents have now registered.

All employees at the 10-storey building on Shing Wan Road will be tested and those working on the sixth floor, where transmission is suspected to have occurred, will be placed in quarantine, according to Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch at the Centre for Health Protection.

Employees on the ground floor were already isolated after transmission was detected.

Advertisement