Experts Divided On The Risk Of Another Covid Outbreak

Medical experts are divided on the risk of Hong Kong seeing yet another wave of coronavirus infections.

The Dean of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, Gabriel Leung, on Sunday warned the daily Covid tally of about 300 implies the virus is still being transmitted in the community.

"We are on the cusp of a potential sixth wave if things tilt in the wrong direction slightly," he wrote on Twitter.

Leung also noted that a mass testing exercise of residents in Sai Wan Estate in Kennedy Town showed an infection rate of 1.3 per cent – much higher than the proportion of cases found in other districts.

But respiratory medicine specialist Leung Chi-chiu was more optimistic, saying without a new variant, another wave of infections is unlikely within the next two months.

"If we do not have any lapse in our border control, there should not be an early sixth wave because we have already had a major fifth wave due to Omicron BA.2, that has reduced the proportion of our susceptible population to a very large extent," he said.

Leung said it is expected that there might be clusters of infections, but he believed they would not develop into major outbreaks.

He added the government could continue to relax social distancing measures while monitoring the coronavirus situation closely.