Coronavirus Outbreak at Fitness Centers Roils Hong Kong's Finance Industry
March 11 2021 - 8:39AM
Dow Jones News
By Wenxin Fan, Frances Yoon and John Lyons
Hong Kong's finance sector was roiled Thursday by a coronavirus
outbreak that emanated from fitness centers in the city, with large
banks, brokerages and asset managers vacating some offices and
employees rushing to get tested for Covid-19.
HSBC Holdings PLC told employees to vacate an entire floor of
its headquarters, located in the city's Central district, after an
employee tested "preliminarily positive" for the virus, according
to people who saw an emailed notice from the British-headquartered
bank. In Hong Kong, a second test from a government laboratory is
done to confirm the result of an initial positive test.
Other employees who work in HSBC's iconic tower, which has close
to 50 floors, were asked to avoid coming to the office unless
necessary, the memo said. The affected person had worked on the
22nd floor of the building, which is undergoing deep cleaning.
At Credit Suisse AG, an employee who had recently been to a gym
tested preliminary positive for the virus, according to people
familiar with the matter. The individual worked on the 91st floor
of a skyscraper across Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour. The Swiss bank
occupies 12 floors in the 108-story building in Kowloon, called the
International Commerce Centre, and the 91st floor includes some of
its trading activities.
Some staffers on the same floor as the affected individual were
told to go home on Wednesday afternoon and that the office would
undergo deep cleaning, one of the people said. On Thursday, the
employees were asked to get tested for Covid-19 before returning,
the person added. The same building also houses the offices of
Morgan Stanley and other global financial firms.
An employee of BNP Paribas also had a positive test after
visiting the gym, but the French bank didn't vacate its office.
Mutual fund giant T. Rowe Price Group Inc. closed its office in
Hong Kong's Central district Thursday for deep cleaning, according
to a person familiar with the matter. "We don't have any employees
that tested positive as of today," a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman
for the Baltimore-headquartered asset manager said Thursday.
Hong Kong, a crowded city with a population of about 7.5
million, has kept coronavirus cases relatively low compared with
the rest of the world, thanks in part to widespread mask-wearing
and social-distancing rules that have limited outdoor and
restaurant gathering sizes to four and under. The city has reported
a little over 11,000 confirmed cases since the pandemic began,
including roughly 200 deaths.
But while the numbers are tiny compared with London, New York
and other big cities, Hong Kong's government has taken a
zero-tolerance approach to outbreaks and has an elaborate
track-and-trace system to identify individuals with the virus and
their close contacts. Schools across the city have been only
partially open even though daily case numbers were, until recently,
in the single digits or teens for weeks.
The current outbreak, which is rippling through Hong Kong's
expatriate community, affected several fitness centers. It started
at a small gym called Ursus Fitness that is known for so-called
strongman workouts, where gym goers lift heavy objects like kegs
and tires.
Ursus, in a Facebook post on Thursday, said that one of its
staff members felt unwell and took a rapid Covid-19 test that day.
Another employee, who was asymptomatic, tested positive soon
after.
Since then, around 50 individuals have been linked to the gym
cluster, including employees, customers and their close contacts.
Dozens more who visited have been tracked down and sent to
government quarantine facilities for up to 14 days.
Hong Kong's Center for Health Protection said Thursday that more
than 240 people visited the gym between March 1 and March 10 and it
is trying to locate all of them.
The outbreak has also caused the closures of multiple
international schools, after some teachers and parents of students
visited the gym and either tested positive or were awaiting their
test results. Youth rugby leagues in Hong Kong, a popular activity
comparable to U.S. Little League Baseball, also suspended practices
on Thursday night.
Write to Wenxin Fan at Wenxin.Fan@wsj.com, Frances Yoon at
frances.yoon@wsj.com and John Lyons at john.lyons@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 11, 2021 08:24 ET (13:24 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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