Aircraft Maintenance Worker Infected With Covid

An aircraft maintenance worker has contracted Covid-19 via unknown sources, and health authorities said they are trying to find out if he might have been infected by those he works with.

Authorities said the 40-year-old man, who repairs cargo flights, was in regular contact with other flight crew.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health Protection quoted the patient as saying that some crew members he came into contact with had been confirmed with Covid-19, but he didn’t know who they are. Officials are going through his rosters and investigating whether he might have contracted the virus from any of them.

"They would have to discuss what kind of things need to be repaired in a cargo flight after they land, so their contacts were mainly in conversation. He usually wears a mask and the contacts were usually brief. They did not have lunch or meals together,” she said.

He has two children, one of whom developed symptoms but has tested negative for the virus.

The two schools they attend, Tin Shui Wai Ling Oi Primary School and SKH St. Joseph's Church Kindergarten in Yuen Long, have been told to close for two days for disinfection.

During the patient’s incubation period and after the onset of symptoms, he took his children to football training in a number of locations, including Kowloon Bay, Ma On Shan, Tin Shui Wai, Sha Tin and Wong Tai Sin.

Specimen bottles will be distributed to collect saliva samples from students at the two schools and those at football training for Covid-19 tests.

Kitchee Football Club, which offers training to youngsters at its academy in Shek Mun, Sha Tin, announced that three of its courses will be suspended for four days as a precaution even though the patient was never inside the facility.

Kitchee also said the academy was being disinfected.

There were six imported cases on Thursday, involving people who flew in from the Philippines, Turkey, Brazil, India and Russia.

Separately the Hospital Authority said on Thursday that a 78-year-old man had died from the disease, bringing the Covid death toll here to 107. He was a resident of an elderly care home in Sham Shui Po that had had a coronavirus outbreak.

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