Act Now To Stop Fifth Wave, Gabriel Leung Warns

The head of the University of Hong Kong's medical school warned on Saturday that urgent action is needed this weekend to prevent a growing outbreak of Covid-19 at an upmarket gym from launching a fifth wave of the coronavirus in the SAR.

Gabriel Leung was speaking as thousands of gym staff from across the territory were ordered to take Covid-19 tests after the number of confirmed cases among staff and clients of the Ursus gym in Sai Ying Pun and their close contacts rose to 64 on Friday. Several more have tested preliminary positive.

Leung, who is also advising the government on its response to the pandemic, said anyone who had been in fitness centres, offices or residential buildings with confirmed cases of the virus should get tested as soon as possible and cease non-essential social activities.

"I think we're at an extremely critical stage where we may be at an inflection point between the nadir that we have seen to have finally achieved to bring the fourth wave under control, with about a week's worth of single-digit new cases," he told reporters.

"And I think it all rather depends on the extent and the intensity of our mitigation effort to detect, monitor and pick out all of the potentially infected cases arising from this superspreading gym cluster."

Leung said sewage samples from buildings in Central and Western District indicated that there were still cases that had not been detected.

The Ursus gym at the centre of the outbreak is a popular workout spot for bankers, lawyers and other professionals, and cases have been detected in the offices of several major businesses.

The government issued compulsory testing notices for 84 places overnight, including 48 residential buildings, 29 places of employment and three further fitness centres. Two schools and two tutorial centres are also affected.