London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 01, 2025

Hong Kong health officials on full alert as dance club Covid-19 cluster grows

Hong Kong health officials on full alert as dance club Covid-19 cluster grows

Of 21 new locally transmitted infections, origins of nine cannot be traced.

A surge of Covid-19 infections, with a growing cluster linked to a Wan Chai dance studio, has placed Hong Kong health authorities on full alert.

Twenty-six cases were confirmed in the city on Friday, including 21 locally transmitted infections. The origins of nine local cases could not be traced.

More than 40 initially positive infections, many untraceable, were also reported.

The cluster linked to Starlight Dance Club had nine more confirmed and seven preliminary positive cases. There are now 10 confirmed cases tied to the group.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch under the Centre for Health Protection, said among the nine new patients linked to Starlight, most had visited the premises on November 14 and some the previous day. One confirmed person had not been to Starlight but had business dealings with a club visitor who was infected, meaning secondary transmission may have occurred.

Among the seven initially positive cases was a club bartender, a family member of an infected person and some patrons who were at the premises on November 12.

“It shows there was some transmission in Starlight. We are now tracking people who visited there on November 13 and 14, and perhaps now we need to trace those who were there on November 12, too,” Chuang said, adding that dozens of people were in the club each day.

She said some of the club’s instructors also taught elsewhere, including at Dance Culture in Causeway Bay and Heavenly Dance in Sheung Wan.

Three other confirmed cases were linked to previous infections.

Most of the nine untraceable infections were preliminary positive cases from the day before, including a taxi driver, a construction worker, a man with special needs and a member of his family.

Three housewives were also among those cases, including one who had visited Palladium International Dance Club in Tsim Sha Tsui on November 16 for a birthday gathering of about 100 people at which ballroom dancing was available.

“It was not necessarily the reason for her infection, but it showed she had joined an activity with quite a lot of people,” Chuang said.


A cluster has been linked to Starlight Dance Club in Wan Chai.


She said many of Friday’s preliminary cases were identified through government community testing centres in Quarry Bay and Yau Ma Tei.

The city’s official tally stands at 5,517 confirmed cases, with 108 related deaths.

The other five confirmed cases were imported, including a pilot from Britain, and arrivals from Pakistan, Romania and India.

Experts had warned about the risk of Covid-19 transmission during dancing.

“Dancing partners are very close together and breathe heavily as this can be a form of exercise. This can generate lots of virus-laden aerosols that spread to many people in an indoor setting,” said Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, an infectious disease expert from the University of Hong Kong who advises the government on the pandemic.

Chuang said it remained unclear whether dance studios or clubs fell under a specific type of premises regulated under Covid-19 rules.

According to the Home Affairs Department, Starlight Dance Club, Heavenly Dance and Dance Culture are not licensed as amusement game centres, clubhouses, karaoke establishments or mahjong-tin kau premises, all of which fall under specific social-distancing regulations.

Palladium International Dance Club has a certificate of compliance for a clubhouse.

Meanwhile, three taxi drivers and a rehab bus driver who were confirmed by the Department of Health as having Covid-19 last Thursday turned out to be “false positive” cases, according to Chinese University’s Professor David Hui Shu-cheong, a respiratory medicine expert and another government adviser.

“After they were admitted to hospital, all their other test samples returned negative. Antibodies cannot be found in their blood tests,” he told a radio show on Friday.

Hui suspected their samples in the private laboratory might have been contaminated. As the health department used the same set of samples, they were therefore confirmed as “positive”.

Chuang said she would not comment on those cases, but added that not all infected patients would develop antibodies.

The Post has contacted KingMed Diagnostics, which was responsible for testing taxi drivers, for comment.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
×