400 residents booked for Covid-19 test after dining at local restaurant

Around 400 people have registered with the Health Bureau as having dined at the restaurant, where the non-resident worker (TNR) who was identified as a close contact of a Covid-19 patient worked, during the two days.
During yesterday’s Covid-19 press briefing, Dr Leong Iek Hou of the coordinator of the local Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) said that all of them already received the SMS with a link that they need to use to book the NAT. The tests will be free of charge.
On Monday, local health authorities clarified the reasons behind why a non-resident worker (TNR) from the mainland was identified as a close contact of a Covid-19 patient.
According to Leong, this person traveled on June 4 in the same train carriage as a person who was a close contact of a confirmed case of Covid-19 from the city of Guangzhou.
For this reason, the TNR working at the Kirin Palace Cantonese Cuisine restaurant became a secondary contact.
Leong remarked that 10 days have passed since that secondary contact was potentially exposed to the virus. As such, the chances of this person being infected are very low. This has since been confirmed by successive nucleic acid testing (NAT) and serum antibody tests that delivered negative results.
Questioned on the need to close the restaurant and order staff members to undergo NAT along with seven days of self-health management at home, the coordinator explained that such measures were taken, “considering that the restaurant where the TNR works is a food establishment with a large number of customers, and they cannot wear masks during the meal. To minimize the risk of spreading the disease in the community, it is necessary to take more rigorous preventive measures than those previously advocated for cases of close secondary contacts.” Nevertheless, Leong remarked that there was no need to panic.
For the same reason, health authorities are advising everyone who dined at this restaurant on June 12 and 13 to notify them so they can also undergo testing.
For those who have already communicated their presence in the food and beverage establishment, the Health Bureau should have already sent them an SMS containing information on how they can arrange to be tested today and tomorrow.
Authorities also claim that this incident “reflects the importance of recording the path of residents in their health code.” For this reason, they are pushing for the implementation of a mobile application to track all residents’ movements, similar to the “LeaveHomeSafe” app currently used in the neighboring region of Hong Kong.