New Curbs Coming As 42 More Covid-19 Cases Confirmed

The government on Thursday announced it would be tightening recently-eased social distancing measures in light of a surge in locally-transmitted cases of Covid-19, as it confirmed 34 more local infections, along with eight imported ones.

Twenty-three of the latest patients are linked to an outbreak at an elderly care home at Tsz Wan Shan. Nine local cases are linked to previously confirmed patients, and three are taxi drivers.

Authorities have been unable to trace the source of two local infections.

Amid the surge of coronavirus infections, officials said restrictions will be again imposed on restaurants – which will only be allowed to fill to 60 percent of their maximum capacity, with the maximum number of customers per table at eight.

Bars and pubs can sit only four per table, and the number of people allowed to gather at venues where people don’t always wear face masks – such as karaokes, gyms and party rooms – will be halved from 16, to eight.

Nightclubs can only run at 60 percent capacity, with the maximum number of customers per table decreasing from eight to four, and all food and drink will be banned at cinemas.

The new tightened restrictions will be implemented on Saturday, and remain for two weeks unless extended.

Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan told a press conference that with Covid-19 continuing to afflict the entire world, the virus won’t suddenly disappear, nor can Hong Kong expect to have zero cases for an extended period of time – at least until an effective vaccine is developed.

As such, some surges in cases like the current wave of infections is to be expected, Chan said, and the government will actively respond to them by putting in place targeted measures.

"Due to the suppress-and-lift strategy, now it is the time for us to suppress. And the focus of the suppression is really on mask-off activities", she said.

"We understand from the recent clusters and also confirmed cases that a number of them are from the catering business."

Chan says the authorities will also be expanding its testing capacity, aimed at testing groups that have recently seen a surge in cases, including elderly people and staff at care homes, catering workers, and public transport drivers.

The Centre for Health Protection's Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan says with five or six taxi drivers having been infected recently, the CHP will be publishing their licence plate numbers on its website.

“I understand most of the customers… will not remember what taxi they took, so we are exploring with telecommunication companies to see whether we can search or find those passengers who had [taken] the taxis during a certain period of time”, Chuang said.

Sophia Chan said the authorities have been taking great care to balance public health with public acceptability of anti-epidemic measures, as well as the need for economic and social activities to return to normal as much as the circumstances can permit.

She said the goal of all the various anti-epidemic measures – social distancing rules, border controls, quarantine, testing and contact tracing – is to keep the number of Covid-19 cases to a level that the healthcare system can cope with.

Currently, the number of total Covid-19 stands at 1,365, with seven fatalities.

______________________________