Covid Situation 'worrying' As More Cabbies Fall Ill

Health officials warned on Thursday that an uptick in the number of untraceable, local cases of Covid-19 suggests that the virus is being passed on in the community.

“With the high infectiousness of this virus, it is possible that we are seeing more and more cases… in the coming days,” Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health Protection said.

Of seven new locally-transmitted cases confirmed on Thursday, Chuang said authorities couldn’t find any source of infection for six.

Of the untraceable cases, five are drivers – four cabbies and rehabilitation bus driver.

Microbiologist Siddarth Sridar from the University of Hong Kong said it isn’t a good sign that taxi drivers are coming down with the coronavirus.

“There certainly is a sense of déjà vu… Before the start of the third wave in Hong Kong we did see a lot of cases among taxi drivers, so that is something that we’re starting to see again because taxi drivers come into contact with a lot of people in a very closed environment,” he said.

The only other untraceable case apart from the drivers involves a 42-year-old man who had attended a wedding banquet at U-Banquet The Starview at The One Shopping mall in Tsim Sha Tsui on October 26.

Chuang said authorities are now appealing to around 200 others who attended the banquet to come forward to get tested, even though chances are low that the patient would have passed on the coronavirus during the event.

“Because it’s not during the communicable period, it’s during the incubation period,” she explained. “We would just like to make sure that there’s no source of infection or there’s a cluster of cases in that wedding banquet.”

She also said some of the patient's close contacts includes teachers and students linked to a number of schools in the city, including the Learning Habitat Kindergarten in Tsing Yi, the Kwok Tak Seng Catholic Secondary School in Sha Tin, the Lei Muk Shue Catholic Primary School, and the Christian Alliance International School in Cheung Sha Wan.

So far none of the close contacts have displayed symptoms, but they will be tested and sent to quarantine centres, and the relevant schools will be closed for up to two days, she said.

There were also 16 new imported cases confirmed on Thursday, including pilots and seafarers who arrived from Asia, the USA and Europe.