NEWS
HONG KONG BAR CLUSTER LED TO FEAR OF COVID SPREAD AMONG THAI COMMUNITY
By Siulan Law Mathews DipWSET
8-10-2020
Credit: David Mathews
Hong Kong health officials have detected a bar cluster of COVID-19 infections involving visiting Thai nationals and have asked for help from the Thai Consulate to find asymptomatic patients in the Thai community.
So far 10 people have been tested positive in this cluster, among them five are Thai nationals or of Thai origin.
The Thai Consulate has committed to help collect samples from the estimated 100 Thai nationals who visit the Consulate office every day for testing.
This bar cluster was first detected when a 22-year-old student was tested positive after visiting a bar called China Secret on 23 September in Tsim Sha Tsui. A 26-year-old visiting Thai woman who was at the bar the same night was also tested positive last week.
Local media quoting police sources as reporting that the Thai woman first entered Hong Kong on 16 March and has permission to stay until 30 September.
She was believed to be working illegally as a hostess in China Secret though she denied it to police and claimed that she was just hanging out in the bar.
Hong Kong health officials have since tracked and traced their close contacts, and found a further eight positive cases among them four are Thai nationals or of Thai origin.
Hong Kong authorities are considering whether to prosecute a 27-year-old Thai housewife with Hong Kong identity card for giving incorrect information on how she contracted the virus and misleading them about the whereabouts of her infected friend.
The woman told authorities she thought she had caught the virus from a 35-year-old friend who she went shopping with in Tsim Sha Tsui, but that the friend had returned to Thailand and tested positive there.
However, the friend in question never left Hong Kong, and was staying in Tsim Sha Tsui with four other Thais. She and one of her flat mates were later tested positive.
This is Hong Kong’s second bar cluster since the outbreak of the pandemic, the first happened in March and April when more than 100 were tested positive in a cluster started in a bar in Lan Kwai Fong in Hong Kong’s Central District.
(the writer can be contacted at: info@thewinechronicle.com)
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