Facility For Recovering Covid Patients Ready To Open

The Hospital Authority (HA) says it will start sending recovering coronavirus patients to its community-isolation facility in Lei Yue Mun on Friday in a bid to ease the pressure on the city's public hospitals amid a third wave of Covid-19 infections.

The first batch of 30 patients will be sent to the Lei Yue Mun Park and Holiday Village, which has been converted from a quarantine camp into an isolation facility.

The HA's official in charge of the project, Larry Lee, doctors and nurses will be stationed at the facility, which can house up to 350 people.

Of the admission criteria, he said patients have to be under 50 years old, had a reduced fever for more than 48 hours, do not suffer from diarrhoea or chronic illnesses, and need to be mobile and in good health so that they can care for themselves.

It will be off-limits to children and pregnant women, but Lee said the HA may allow families to isolate together under special circumstances.

In the beginning, there'll be several doctors and more than 20 nurses on shift duty.

Patients there will have their conditions monitored and have their deep throat saliva tested for the coronavirus daily, and they can be discharged after two negative tests.

Lee said with about 70 percent of beds in negative-pressure wards being occupied, the authorities decided to convert the park from a quarantine camp to an isolation facility to ease the pressure on hospitals.

The news comes after Hong Kong recorded a record daily tally of 113 Covid-19 infections on Wednesday. Some experts have expressed concerns that if the number of coronavirus cases continues to increase, this will put more pressure on the city's quarantine facilities and hospital beds.