An official walks along an aisle between rows of partitioned rooms in the Community Treatment Facility at AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong on November 24, 2020, as the city faces a spike in COVID-19 novel coronavirus infections. (ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)

HONG KONG - Hong Kong reported 85 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, the city’s biggest daily increase since early August.

In a press briefing on Wednesday afternoon, Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch, said 84 of the new infections were locally transmitted.

Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch, said 84 of the new infections were locally transmitted

Of this number, 63 cases were linked to the dance studio cluster, which has grown to include 250 patients, Chuang said.

She added that 16 other local infections were of unknown origin. The sole imported case came from the United Kingdom. The city’s tally of confirmed cases stood 5,781.

Chuang also said that there were more than 60 people who tested preliminarily positive on Wednesday.

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Twenty-five of the fresh cases were detected through the city’s four community testing centers. So far, the four centers have tested more than 5,000 people believed to be linked to the dance studio cluster.

Among the preliminary cases were a 27-year-old nurse at Gleneagles Hong Kong Hospital and an employee at Siu King Care and Attention Home in To Kwa Wan. Some of his close contacts would be tested or quarantined, Chuang said.

A week-long closure of bars, nightclubs, party rooms and bath houses is set to take effect on Thursday, although dance clubs are still allowed open.

On the sidelines of a press conference related to her Policy Address, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said that, as of Wednesday, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government had no plans for another round of universal testing.

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She questioned the feasibility of mandatory testing for the city’s more than 7 million people, saying the HKSAR and local residents are unlikely to afford at least four weeks of lockdown, a measure that will have to come together with mandatory testing.