Hong Kong’s rich and famous who have caught COVID-19 have behaved in a “selfish” manner, severely handicapping the fight to contain the pandemic with their reluctance to cooperate with contact-tracing procedures, leading microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung said, in a withering attack on the city’s social elite.

“They went to those dinner gatherings with other famous people. After they tested positive, they refused to tell [medical professionals] who they have contacted,” the Hong Kong University medical school’s chair of infectious diseases said in a radio interview this morning. Their refusal to cooperate has significantly slowed down the government’s contact-tracing work, he said.

Sunday saw 95 new cases, a slight dip from the daily toll over the past week, when more than 100 new infections were recorded for four consecutive days. Eighteen new cases were related to the cluster related to dance clubs – in which a number of socialites caught the virus from dance classes and then went on to spread it among their high-society contacts. The cluster has now been linked to 643 cases, making it the largest since the virus first spread to Hong Kong in January.

Yuen urged Hongkongers to cooperate with the government’s contact-tracing efforts. Given the number of cases, it was not enough to rely only on the Department of Health to trace all the individuals, he said.

He thanked private doctors for their help in testing individuals, with the proportion of positive cases going from 0.4%-0.8% to 1.35%.

There remain many weaknesses in the testing for the virus at border crossings, Yuen said. These included the inadequate amount of saliva collected, the fact that samples were often not taken from deep throat, and that not enough people were aware that they shouldn’t eat for two hours before the tests, he said.

It would take only one or two weeks to contain the pandemic if social distancing measures could reach the levels seen in July, Yuen said.

However, the coming fourth wave was likely to be widespread as the government has failed to stop the virus at the border, while bars and restaurants have not observed the guidelines, he said.

The influx of students returning home for the Christmas holiday may prove another critical test for Hong Kong, Yuen said. He urged the public not to go to bars and restaurants to celebrate.

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