Speed Up Contact Tracing In Gym Cluster: Expert

University of Hong Kong microbiologist Ho Pak-leung warned on Monday that more coronavirus outbreaks could emerge in the community if health authorities don't act quickly enough to trace close contacts of patients linked to a Sai Ying Pun gym.

The fast-growing gym cluster – originating from Ursus Fitness – has already seen more than 100 people coming down with the disease and hundreds of close contacts sent to quarantine. It has also become the city's second largest cluster since the deadly virus spread to Hong Kong from Wuhan last year.

Ho told an RTHK programme the gym-goers could have spread the virus at restaurants if they had been eating out, and he's unsure whether the government's LeaveHomeSafe app is doing its job to send exposure notifications to users who had been to venues around the same time as confirmed patients.

"The 100 or so people must have gone out for dining in the past 10 days. We are not seeing there's any improvement in contact tracing on that front. Although many people have installed the LeaveHomeSafe, the app seems not to have fully shown its effectiveness," he said.

The expert warned if there's a delay in contact tracing, there could be clusters emerging from restaurants. He added that even though cases directly related to Ursus Fitness dropped on Sunday, it doesn't mean the risks are gone.

His view was echoed by another infectious disease expert, Leung Chi-chiu, who expects gym-related cases linked to secondary or tertiary transmissions to emerge in the coming one or two weeks.

He also told RTHK that he wasn't optimistic about the current situation as there are still many cases with unknown sources scattered throughout various industries.