Hong Kong tightens social-distancing rules amid eight imported Covid-19 cases
- Infections involve travellers from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Spain, and the United States
- New measures include reducing number of people who can sit together in bars and restaurants
The government also launched its contact tracing app, “Leave Home Safe”, which stores users’ travel history and shows them if they could have been exposed to the virus, in an attempt to prevent a fourth wave of infections this winter.
The latest infections involved travellers from Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in South Asia, as well as from the Philippines, Spain and the United States. Five of them were identified during their quarantine after entering the city.
The total number of cases in the city stood at 5,466, with 108 related deaths.
In view of cases in which the virus was found on packaging materials of frozen commodities in mainland China and other places in recent days, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said on Monday that it would extend its free, targeted testing of “high-risk” groups to cold storage workers from Wednesday.
On Saturday, health officials announced a raft of measures designed to prevent a fourth wave, including restricting the number of people who could sit together in restaurants to four, and capping that figure for bars at two, starting on Monday.