Hong Kong to Give $645 to Those Found With Covid-19

Hong Kong will give a one-time HK$5,000 ($645) payment to anyone in the city who tests positive for Covid-19 to encourage people to take tests for the virus, Health Secretary Sophia Chan said.

The Labour and Welfare Bureau will announce details of the handout plan later, Radio Television Hong Kong cited Chan as saying in a radio interview. She said the government is setting up another five community testing centers, adding to the four already in operation, according to the report.

Hong Kong will impose new social restrictions as local coronavirus cases spike, prompting an announcement Saturday that a planned travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore would be postponed for two weeks.

On Sunday, the city reported 68 new cases, the most in three months. All but seven cases were considered to be locally transmitted while the number of cases not having an immediately identifiable source was about a dozen, a Centre for Health Protection spokeswoman said at a briefing.

Hong Kong Virus Cases Surge Again as City Sees ‘Fourth Wave’

Hong Kong issued its first compulsory testing order Sunday, requiring people who been on the premises of any of 14 dance centers this month to be screened. The businesses have been linked to a cluster of fresh cases and will be shut for five days through Nov. 26, according to a government statement.

The cluster shows the “existence of many silent transmission chains in the community,” a spokesman for the Food and Health Bureau said in the statement. About 80 cases have been linked to this group.