Dance Cluster Pushes Daily Cases To 3-month High

Hong Kong recorded 68 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Sunday – the highest total in more than three months – as health authorities warned that bringing the upsurge in cases under control would be very difficult.

Forty-six of the new patients were directly or indirectly linked to a cluster involving dance studios across the SAR. This brought the total number of infections in the cluster to 80.

"I can't predict the size of this cluster. It's growing quite fast, that's why we're very concerned," said Chuang Shuk-kwan from the Centre from Health Protection.

Chuang pointed out that there could be environmental contamination at the dance studios involved, noting that a cleaner at one of the venues was confirmed to have the coronavirus on Sunday after a cleaner at another club was diagnosed earlier.

A teacher at the Institute of Technology in Cheung Sha Wan was also among the latest cases linked to the dance cluster.

Earlier on Sunday, the government ordered everyone who had been to any of 14 dance clubs that had been visited by patients in the cluster to take a test by Tuesday or face a fine.

Chuang said the expanding number of infections was proving hard to control because many of the patients had been involved in various activities, potentially bringing them into contact with large numbers of people.

She conceded that it was likely to be some time before the number of cases started to reverse. She revealed that preliminary tests showed at least another 50 people were carrying the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, officials were trying to trace the source of eleven other infections, including a seventy-year-old woman from Kwai Chung who performed in a Cantonese opera at the Leighton Hill Community Centre in Causeway Bay earlier.

Seven people returning from overseas were also among the patients confirmed to have the coronavirus on Sunday.