How One Gym Sent Tremors Through Hong Kong’s Financial Industry

Covid-19 has come for Hong Kong’s privileged expatriate community — and it’s entered through a gym that caters to bankers, hedge fund managers, financial analysts, stock brokers, their friends, family and anyone who works and does business with them. Expatriates make up just around 5% of Hong Kong’s 7.5 million people, but their wealth and social standing give them outsize influence. The financial services sector — which generates about 20% of Hong Kong’s gross domestic product — virtually ground to a halt on Thursday, distracted by rumors coursing through WhatsApp chat groups and messages pinging back-and-forth among parents of kids who attend the city’s expensive international schools. In-person instruction had just recently resumed. Now at least three schools have shut down.

The expats feared not just for their health but for what the Hong Kong government might do. In late January, the city locked more than 10,000 people in their minuscule apartments in the Jordan district as hazmat-suited government workers marched in to test them. The city’s rulers wouldn’t do that to the rich… Or would they?

The panic and anxiety began early Wednesday when news broke of a positive test result for a personal trainer at a fitness center in Sai Ying Pun, an up-and-coming neighborhood popular among expats. The next day, the government announced there were at least 17 confirmed cases and 30 preliminary cases connected to the trainer. Gyms had reopened less than a month ago.

On Wednesday, a friend of mine who works in the financial community was packing his bags after just being tested. One of his colleagues was a confirmed case and, because of that, my friend said he was told he’d end up quarantining for two weeks at a center in Penny’s Bay, near Disneyland, no matter what his results showed. There won’t be WiFi. Food will come in a polystyrene box received through a window. He’s brought his computer to do work — and as much good spirit as he can muster.