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HONG KONG – The government will force the closure of more venues even as it orders mandatory tests for people who have been to seven more dance studios this month, as it moves to control the outbreak initially linked to 14 studios.
Speaking ahead of her executive council meeting, Executive Director Carrie Lam said Tuesday morning (November 24) that the cluster outbreak is concerning and that the government will take steps to close certain facilities.
Details will be announced later on Tuesday.
“We will focus on closing certain stores. These premises are generally indoors.
“Most of them involve activities where you take off your mask and there is also (a) crowd gathering and in the crowd gathering activities, there will be some personal contact and these activities are just for leisure.
“We think that given the situation, we will have to close this place,” he said.
The impending move comes as the dance studio focuses on 132 patients, which, according to Ms Lam, was the largest outbreak since the pandemic hit the city.
The government issued an advisory on Tuesday to say that the seven venues spread across the city in Mei Foo, Aberdeen, Sha Tin and Tsim Sha Tsui are added to a list of 14 dance studios linked to the current group.
Visitors to all seven studios have until Thursday (Nov. 26) to get tested, while those who visited all 14 dance clubs were given until Tuesday to submit samples for testing.
On Monday, Hong Kong registered 73 new confirmed cases, of which 63 were local. This brings the count to more than 5,700, including 108 deaths.
Separately, the executive director said there are 200 new initiatives proposed this year in her fourth political address to be delivered on Wednesday.
“Due to the difficult financial situation of the government, we have had the budget and three rounds of funds against the epidemic, we have already used HK $ 310 billion ($ 53.8 billion). That may be the government deficit this year.
“We would like to ensure the reforms, streamlining the synergy to implement these new initiatives without using additional monetary resources,” said Lam.
Some 700 initiatives have been proposed in the past three years with 95 percent completed or in progress, he noted, adding that the remaining five percent will move as parliament accelerates.
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