Government workers and police officers in the Mid-Levels neighborhood of Hong Kong, March 13.
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Hong Kong abruptly locked down four buildings in the heart of a popular expatriate residential area, taking one of its most dramatic steps yet to contain a super-spreading event that began in a gym and put many of the city’s elite and their families on edge.
Authorities cordoned off two towers each at the Robinson Place and Blessings Garden residential complexes in the exclusive Mid-Levels neighborhood, according to a government statement Saturday. All residents will be required to be tested at mobile testing stations before 2 a.m. Sunday and the lockdown will likely be lifted by 9 a.m., it said.
Police vans and officers arrived earlier in the 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.
The move marks an escalation of a days-old campaign that’s already resulted in hundreds of people being sent to quarantine camps, dozens of offices being ordered to conduct mandatory employee testing and several of Hong Kong’s most expensive schools to halt in-person classes. While the city’s had bigger flareups before, 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.
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Several banks advised staff earlier this 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.
Officials earlier ordered 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.
— With assistance by Rishaad Salamat, and Katharina Rosskopf