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Hong Kong completes testing after mini-lockdown in city center
Authorities cordoned off two towers each at the Robinson Place and Blessings Garden residential complexes in the exclusive Mid-Levels neighborhood on Saturday.
Hong Kong completed coronavirus tests in four buildings locked down in the heart of an upmarket residential area popular with expatriates, taking one of its most dramatic steps yet to contain a super-spreading event that began in a gym.
Authorities cordoned off two towers each at the Robinson Place and Blessings Garden residential complexes in the exclusive Mid-Levels neighborhood on Saturday. As of 2 a.m. on Sunday, 1,855 residents in the buildings had been tested and no confirmed Covid-19 cases were found, the government said in a statement. The screening was completed at 9 a.m. and the enforcement operation concluded at around 11 a.m.
Police vans and officers arrived on Saturday evening to seal off the area around the buildings with red tape and metal barricades. Nearly a dozen makeshift tents lined the sidewalk as government workers in protective gear began setting up specimen collection stations.
On Sunday, the government announced more workplaces, schools and residential buildings were subject to compulsory testing orders. The updated list includes offices housing UBS Group, Chanel Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. and Standard Chartered Plc.
Screening will also be required at six schools and universities including the Kowloon Bay campus of Kellett School, whose Pok Fu Lam branch was closed last week, as well as at more than a dozen residential buildings in the central area of Sai Ying Pun where sewage samples tested positive for the virus.
The government’s latest measures marked an escalation of a days-old campaign that’s already resulted in hundreds of people being sent to quarantine camps, dozens of offices ordered to conduct mandatory employee testing and several of Hong Kong’s most expensive schools halting in-person classes. While the city’s had bigger flareups, no outbreak has hit so close to home for many of the city’s expats since the pandemic began.
The number of confirmed cases linked to the outbreak ballooned to 99 after the first case was reported on Wednesday.
Several banks advised staff last week to not come into offices. HSBC Holdings Plc vacated a floor of its main building Thursday after an employee tested preliminary positive, according to a memo to staff. UBS Group AG told some staff to work from home after an employee tested positive, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reverted to a policy of 50% of staff working from home.
The outbreak also affected legal firms, with Allen & Overy and Herbert Smith Freehills both closing their offices after employees tested positive. Clifford Chance asked staff to work remotely out of an “abundance of caution.”
Hong Kong, which has one of the strictest quarantine regimes in the world, requires all who have had close contact with infected persons to enter mandatory isolation for a period up to two weeks. More than 300 people have been sent to quarantine in the latest outbreak, which started with a trainer at Ursus Fitness in Sai Ying Pun, a gym popular with western expats.
On Saturday, health officials clarified there would be compulsory Covid tests for a group of eight- and nine-year-olds in an international school after their teacher tested positive for the virus. Some will be required to be quarantined with a parent or caregiver. An earlier directive was said to have ordered all the children to be quarantined.
