Hong Kong: Hong Kong Health Authority on Wednesday started a search throughout the city for Covid-19 patient contacts and ordered the Karibbean royal ship “everywhere” of the ship to return to the port earlier.
The Global Finance Hub has attached to the zero-covid strategy with most of isolation of itself from the world and enforces the Draconian and expensive quarantine regime.
On December 31, a three-month line without case the community ended with the first local transmission of the new Omicron variant.
Since then, the authorities have rushed to track and tested hundreds of people who come into contact with some omicron patients.
“The most stringent anti-epidemic steps will be implemented to prevent mutant strains from the spread in the local community,” the government said in a statement.
The latest hunt triggered by a patient dancing around 20 friends in the central park on New Year’s Eve.
Two of fellow dancers, one of which is a housemaid, appears positive in a preliminary test.
Helper employer and eight nearby contacts then traveled “sailing everywhere” on January 2, who will return on January 6.
As part of the restriction of Coronavirus, Hong Kong has limited cruise ships on a short trip in the nearest waters, with ships requested to operate at reduced capacity and only allows vaccinated passengers to test negative for viruses.
The ship “Spectrum of the Seas” has around 2,500 passengers and 1,200 staff on board.
Nine close contact passengers were isolated from the rest of the people on the boat and the initial test taken during the trip to restore negative results, the authorities said.
“The sea spectrum takes steps right under the guidelines by the Ministry of Health,” said Royal Caribbean told Reuters in a statement.
The ship, which in October was prevented from leaving with a similar trip because of the fear of Coronavirus, returning to the initial terminal on Wednesday.
Nine close contacts will be sent to the quarantine center, while the rest of the passengers and staff must undergo several required tests in the coming days, the government said.
In addition, the people who have been 47 places throughout Hong Kong around the same time with close contact from patients have recently been issued a mandatory testing notice, the government said in a separate statement.
Places include Central Victoria Park, M + Museum of newly opened modern art, ferry pier, restaurants, shops, clinics and more.