By Vir B. Lumicao
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| Six diners in this restaurant came down with the virus |
The Centre for Health Protection is investigating an outbreak
of coronavirus infections in a Chinese restaurant at a posh shopping mall in
Tsimshatsui after six diners who had lunch at the place on Feb 18 and 19 came
down with the virus.
They were among 17 new Covid-19 cases reported today, Feb 24.
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Compulsory testing orders would be issued to those who visited Mr Ming’s Chinese Dining restaurant at K11 Musea on Salisbury Road on those dates, said CHP's Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan at the daily press briefing.
Chuang, the head of CHP’s communicable disease branch, said health officials are still checking whether the infection came from person to person contact or through the virus suspended in the air after an infected person coughed.
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| Chuang says it's not clear how the virus spread among the diners |
The first patient was infected after he lunched in the restaurant on Feb 18, the first day of the relaxation of the social distancing ban on gatherings of more than two persons.
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“We are still investigating the route of transmission, but most likely it is a person to person transmission. And among the six cases we have identified so far, five of them visited the restaurant around the same time between 1 and 2pm on the 19th of February,” said Chuang.
She said although the patients came in three separate groups, it was possible there was a case in the restaurant who was the source of the infection.
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But she said there could be other factors, such as the staff, the environment or the toilet, from which the patients possibly got the infection.
“If there was a chain of transmission, we are not sure about the route of the transmission for the time being, it will be hard to find out the number of people per table to whom we will send the notification,” Chuang said.
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She said the CHP would check with the restaurant if they have records of the clients on Feb 18 and afterwards. These would be sent compulsory testing orders through SMS or the Leave Home Safe app.
Of the confirmed cases today, one was imported, a 25-year-old woman who flew in from Dubai on Feb 22, and was found to carry the British variant of the virus.
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Six of the 16 local cases had unknown sources, said Chuang,
and all were from the same block in a Shatin residential estate, the Carado
Garden.
One of the six was a woman who works at a cake shop in Royal Plaza Hotel in Mongkok, where a male co-worker was confirmed positive on Tuesday.
The government issued a compulsory testing order today for Block 2 of Carado Garden following the rash of infections there. The same order was issued for eight other buildings after at least one infected case was recorded in their premises.
Among the preliminary positive cases was a 16-year-old student at Yu Chun Keung Memorial College who last attended class yesterday. The school has been ordered closed for two weeks for sanitation and disinfection, and all its students and teachers have also been told to undergo a Covid-19 test.
Dr Sara Ho, a chief manager at the Hospital Authority, said the HA receives 10,000 to 20,000 test kits each day, so the testing takes longer as each sample goes through a step by step process before the result is known.
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