Hong Kong fourth wave: care homes, hospitals, schools affected as city logs 82 new Covid-19 cases, with tighter restrictions, boat party crackdown looming
- ‘Super-spreader’ dance cluster swells to 552, as more venues are added to new mandatory testing list
- Wedding attendance will be capped at 20 and religious gatherings at just two, source says, while clampdown on parties at sea will be supported by dedicated new tip line
Hong Kong confirmed 82 new coronavirus cases on Tuesday as officials moved to curtail more recently eased social-distancing rules, with tighter restrictions for weddings, religious events, tour groups and rule-flouting boat parties.
Sources said fines for offenders could be raised to as much as HK$10,000 (US$1,290), with 23 of Tuesday’s infections being untraceable and 32 linked to the still-expanding “super-spreader” cluster from dance and singing venues, which has swollen to 552 cases. Fresh infections were also detected in the city’s care facilities, schools and a public hospital.
Health officials also ordered the mass testing of some 900 workers at a construction site in Tseung Kwan O after three employees were confirmed infected and eight more tested preliminary-positive.
More than 60 people tested preliminary-positive for the virus on Tuesday, and are likely to see their diagnoses confirmed on Wednesday.
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The construction site, along with a Tsim Sha Tsui restaurant where new cases were identified, will become the latest additions to a list of venues where visitors will require mandatory testing.
The new social-distancing rules, approved by the Executive Council in its weekly meeting on Tuesday, came after the city’s leader announced sweeping restrictions to curb a worsening fourth wave, ones that included capping public gatherings to two people, reducing restaurant dine-in hours, closing more entertainment venues and making civil servants work from home.
According to a source familiar with the situation, the administration had decided to end exemptions that were previously granted for certain activities and venues after the last wave of infections eased.
Under the new rules, weddings will once again be limited to 20 people, down from 50, while religious gatherings, previously capped at 50 per cent of a venue’s capacity, will now be treated like any other public gathering, with no more than two people allowed to take part at a time.
Local tours, which had been allowed to operate at a maximum of 30 people under certain restrictions, such as mask wearing, will also have to operate with groups of two people once again.
The penalty for violating the rules on public gatherings, mask wearing and mandatory testing will also be increased from the current HK$2,000 to between HK$5,000 and HK$10,000 to increase their deterrent effect, the source added.
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Speaking of the fresh outbreak at the construction site, Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch, said she believed the transmissions were due to contact among workers.
“There are lots of person-to-person contact in the construction site. Not everyone could wear masks in that situation because it is quite hot sometimes. Sometimes they work in an enclosed environment,” she added.
The site, at Lohas Park, has been shut for disinfection while its 900 workers are tested, while anyone else who visited there after November 15 will also be required to undergo mandatory testing.
Signs of the further spread of the virus in the city’s care homes also emerged on Tuesday. One more resident and another worker at Fong Shu Chuen Day Activity Centre and Hostel, a facility in Shau Kei Wan for the disabled, were confirmed to be infected, bringing the cluster there to five people. Eight other residents also tested preliminary-positive.
Tung Wah Group of Hospitals’ Ho Yuk Chung Willow Lodge in Tai Kok Tsui, where a worker had previously been infected, also reported two new cases – one staff member and one resident. A resident at the Pat Lok Nursing Home in San Po Kong was also confirmed infected, and about 50 other residents and staff members will now be sent to quarantine.
A histopathology doctor in Queen Elizabeth Hospital was also among the confirmed infections on Tuesday, as was another doctor working in the same laboratory who had tested preliminary-positive the day before. The Hospital Authority said neither had been in contact with Covid-19 patients or specimens.
One more doctor considered a close contact of the pair would be quarantined, while 77 other colleagues who were tested but not considered close contacts have so far returned negative results.
Chuang said that the infected doctor who showed symptoms first might have transmitted the virus to the other, as the two often took public transport together on their way home after work.
Meanwhile, Chuang declared a recently identified cluster at Union Hospital an “outbreak” on Tuesday. The facility had seen one staff member linked to the dancing cluster confirmed to be infected last week, and three more infected since. A fifth worker tested preliminary-positive on Monday, but the hospital was unable to say whether their infection had been confirmed as of Tuesday.
All but one of the cases after the first, however, were detected while the patients were in quarantine.
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Also among Tuesday’s cases were two students at different schools, as well as a substitute teacher linked to another two schools. Meanwhile, another restaurant – Pine Tree Hill Seafood in Tsim Sha Tsui – was added to the list of venues whose patrons must seek mandatory screening after some of its customers and staff were infected.
The latest infections took the city’s total confirmed case tally to 6,396, with 109 related deaths.
In a morning press briefing before the weekly Executive Council meeting, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor also revealed that Hong Kong marine police were launching a Covid-19 crackdown on large parties aboard private yachts and junk boats with the support of a new tip-off hotline.
Lam also disclosed on Tuesday that the branch had set up a dedicated channel for reporting social-distancing violations on boats and at waterfronts.
“If residents see group gatherings at piers or landing steps and believe they are going to sea, please report it to 3660 8623 for the marine police to follow up,” she said at her weekly press briefing.
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Packed piers and large gatherings at sea have become a weekend feature in Sai Kung and other hubs of water-based leisure activity during the epidemic’s curbs and closures.
Introducing a separate hotline for breaches of the public-gathering limit at sea was aimed at preventing events being moved to boats following the mandatory closure of party rooms and nightclubs, Lam added.
“Some people may hire yachts and continue with their gatherings instead,” she said.
“I’ve also requested our colleagues [the marine police] to check if there are online advertisements for arranging parties at sea.”
