- Some 24 of the newly diagnosed patients had left the city recently, including 12 students
- Another new case concerns a worker at Dusk Till Dawn, one of the live-music bars with an outbreak
Hong Kong reported 32 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, taking the city's tally to 714 as a new cluster emerged involving people who used the same karaoke lounge.
The Centre for Health Protection told a press conference on Tuesday that 24 of the newly diagnosed patients had travelled outside the city recently, including 12 students.
Among the eight who had not travelled recently, four went to a karaoke lounge operated by major local chain RedMR on March 24. Another local case confirmed on Monday went to the same premises with the same group of people.
Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the centre's communicable disease branch, described the karaoke cluster as a "small outbreak" as it involved only seven people. The other two, who had not been confirmed as infected, would be sent to quarantine centres.
The other local cases included a worker at Dusk Till Dawn, one of the live-music bars with an outbreak of cases. The other three new local cases were family members of previously confirmed patients.
The Hospital Authority said 12 confirmed patients were still waiting for admission to hospital as of 3pm, hours after Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor announced that recovering patients might be discharged to other quarantine centres as isolation wards neared full capacity.
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Six types of leisure venue " including cinemas, party rooms and gyms " were ordered to close down on Saturday for 14 days to curb the spread of the virus. While karaoke lounges were not included in the ban, they were required to observe the same rules as restaurants, such as ensuring at least 1.5 metres between tables and not having more than four people at one table.
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