Buildings In Three Districts Locked Down

The government on Saturday locked down buildings in three districts, including Block 6 of Villa Athena in Ma On Shan, where a woman who dined at the Moon Palace restaurant lives. The 50-year-old tested preliminary positive for Covid-19.

The restaurant at the Festival Walk mall in Kowloon Tong is at the centre of the community outbreak. A Cathay Pacific aircrew worker, who returned from the United States, visited the restaurant with his father on Monday – the same day as the 50-year-old woman. The Cathay employee later tested positive for the Omicron variant.

His father was then found to be infected as well, as was another diner – a construction worker who had been sitting around 10 metres away.

The government has declared the Nam Tin Building in North Point and two blocks at Carribean Coast in Tung Chung to be restricted areas and ordered all residents to test for Covid-19.

The North Point restricted area does not include a restaurant on Levels 1 and 2 of the building at 275 King's Road.

The operations in North Point and Tung Chung began just before 7pm, while the one in Ma On Shan began at 10.30pm.

Authorities will set up temporary specimen collection stations in North Point and Tung Chung with the aim of testing everyone in those two locations by 1am. Residents under the Ma On Shan lockdown will be tested by 2.30am.

The Centre for Health Protection said it is investigating an imported case, involving a 28-year-old female, who tested preliminary positive for Covid-19 with the N501Y and T478K mutant strains. The patient, a local aircrew member, lives in Nam Tin Building in North Point. She told health authorities that she had stayed at a friend's home at Tower 6 of Albany Cove, Carribean Coast in Tung Chung since December 29.

Health authorities are concerned that Hong Kong may be on the brink of a new outbreak – this time involving the highly-infectious Omicron variant – following the first community transmission here of the virus in months.

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