Hong Kong holiday camps become quarantine zones as virus fears spike

Hong Kong has turned two holiday camps, including a former military barracks, into quarantine zones for people who may have come into contact with carriers of the Wuhan virus, officials announced Thursday.

The international financial hub has been on high alert for the virus, which has killed 17 people since the outbreak started in central China.

The same sites were used as quarantine facilities during the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak 17 years ago.

Nearly 300 people in Hong Kong were killed by SARS, a tragedy that left a profound psychological impact on one of the most densely populated places on earth.

So far, two people in the city have tested positive for the new coronavirus -- which is similar to the SARS pathogen.

Both had visited Wuhan in recent days and are being treated on isolation wards in hospital.

On Thursday evening Hong Kong officials cancelled a five-day Lunar New Year festival in a public park that had been due to open on Saturday.

The gambling hub of Macau -- hugely popular with mainland tourists -- also confirmed two cases this week, and earlier on Thursday Macau's tourism bureau announced it was cancelling all official Lunar New Year celebrations in response.

City officials also announced two parks usually used by campers and holidaymakers had been prepared to isolate any potential cases while they await test results.

"We will have a full team of staff to operate the quarantine camps," Wong Ka-hing, the director of the Centre for Health Protection, told reporters.

Wong said three people who had come into close contact with the two confirmed cases would be taken to a camp in rural Sai Kung district.

Another holiday camp, a former British military barracks on Hong Kong island, was being prepared to serve as a quarantine facility.

Local news network RTHK said one of the first people to be transported to the quarantine site in Sai Kung was an Australian visitor who had stayed at the same hotel as a man who tested positive for the virus.

"I feel so good right now," RTHK quoted the unidentified man as saying.

When asked what he had been told about why he was being placed in isolation, the visitor replied: "I have no idea why. I was just living in the hotel."