Social distancing measures in Hong Kong could be further relaxed so families of up to six per table could gather at eateries to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival on Oct. 1 if new COVID-19 infections continue trending downwards, medical experts said.

But strict measures at the borders to keep imported cases at bay must be maintained as 19 out of 23 new cases recorded on Sunday were imported from abroad. Eleven of them were found to have arrived on two flights from Malaysia and India.

Chinese University of Hong Kong’s infectious disease expert David Hui said if there weren’t any widespread infections in the community and no dramatic increase in untraceable cases, it would be possible to increase the number of people allowed to gather together from four to six.

But if a cluster were to re-emerge at a restaurant, the dine-in ban might need to be reinstated, Hui said. Restaurants must continue to observe the strict gathering ban and install a high-performing air filtering system to maintain air circulation, he urged.

A relaxation of the gathering ban would undoubtedly help the restaurant industry, which has been in dire straits due to the pandemic, said Simon Wong, president of the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades. Bookings for Mid-Autumn Festival this year so far only accounted for 20% to 30% of restaurants' capacity, compared to 80% last year, he said.

Wong hoped the government could announce the gathering ban relaxation by Thursday so that restaurants could prepare for next week, when the Mid-Autumn Festival coincides with the National Day holiday. He expected total bookings to pass 30% capacity but not exceed 50%.

Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection, did not address the potential relaxation of the gathering ban but she recommended members of the public to keep their masks on when they were not eating and to minimize social gathering.

Communicable diseases expert Leung Chi-chiu warned that the pandemic could be worsened, especially in places that were home to many domestic workers. The high proportion of imported cases meant that strengthening the testing and health inspection at Hong Kong borders would do little to help as COVID-19 testing should’ve been completed before passengers boarded flights, he said.

Passengers flying in from high-risk regions must test negative 72 hours before boarding a flight, but it is not possible to shorten this further, Leung said. Hui said that the certification might not be completely reliable as laboratory standards varied in different places. The government could consider sending those arriving from high-risk regions to stay in quarantine camps first to ensure they are not infected, Leung said.

Meanwhile, a 28-year-old researcher working at a University of Hong Kong laboratory has tested positive for the virus, with the source yet to be confirmed. The lab and the neighboring office have already been closed, Chuang said, and 41 colleagues of the researcher have been sent to quarantine camps. About 300 employees working on the same floor as the lab have tested negative.

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