35 New Covid Cases Confirmed, "numbers To Fluctuate"

Hong Kong reported 35 new confirmed Covid cases on Saturday - the lowest number since the fourth wave of coronavirus hit the SAR.

Health authorities said the source of infection for ten cases is not yet known, and there are more than 40 preliminary positive cases thus far.

The Centre for Health Protection's Chuang Shuk-kwan said that although the number of confirmed coronavirus infections in Hong Kong appears to be trending lower, infections are still expected to fluctuate because of recent cases related to holiday family gatherings.

"Although the overall trend is a bit downwards, still we're receiving cases due to holiday gatherings in the past few days..... We're still expecting the numbers may fluctuate for a while," she said.

Chuang said residents of three more buildings have to take mandatory coronavirus tests because there have been more than two infections reported for each block.

They are Wah Po Mansion on Fuk Wa Street in Sham Shui Po, Yuen Long's Chuen Shui House of Shui Pin Wai Estate, and the left wing of Almond Blossom, Tower 9 at La Splendeur at Lohas Park Phase 2C in Tseung Kwan O.

People who have been there for more than two hours in the past fortnight have until Tuesday to take a Covid test.

Responding to a comment by Innovation and Technology Secretary Alfred Sit saying the government can't rule out making it mandatory for people to download its "Leave Home Safe" app, Chuang said her Centre doesn't use the app for contact-tracing of confirmed patients.

She said the Centre does get information from the app if a patient has been using it, and this data will be shared with app users who've also visited the same places during the incubation period.

Chuang also said two more local patients have been found to have the strain of coronavirus variant found in the UK, and one patient with the South African variant. So far, there have been 10 UK-related cases in the SAR in total, and two related to the South African variant.

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