Experts Sent To AsiaWorld-Expo Amid Infections There

Health authorities said on Tuesday that infection-control specialists were being sent to AsiaWorld-Expo after nine more Covid-19 cases were recorded at the facility.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health Protection said the team will review infection-control practices among healthcare staff at the site, which is being used as a quarantine facility.

Chuang said many of those being quarantined there are residents from a disabled home, and this means healthcare staff need to be in close contact with them.

"It's very difficult for them to handle them, because they may not be very cooperative and most of them eventually become infected," Chuang said.

"So the staff may have to have very close contact with them. If there's any lapse in the infection-control measures or the practice, they may get infected.

"Just like the other residential care homes in Hong Kong or the disabled homes, when there's an outbreak you'll find lots of staff as well as residents being infected."

Authorities reported a total of 100 new coronavirus cases -- 95 of which are locally acquired infections, and 27 from unknown sources.

There were five more cases in a cluster at Kwai Shing West Estate.

Three of the latest patients live on the fifth floor of Block 8. Altogether, eight units on the fifth floor have been affected.

Chuang said the flats are quite close together and residents might have been exposed to the virus while previously confirmed patients were staying there.

As to another cluster at a YATA supermarket in Sha Tin, Chuang said authorities are still investigating. She said a small common room there could be a risk factor, as staff would sometimes eat there together.

"But not all of them are using that room. And they don't use changing rooms... because they are all staff of Yata, they might talk to each other even though they don't know each other very well," she said. "So we still have to tease out the exact relationship and whether there's any other common risk factors other than the common room."