Five More Hospital Patients, Staff Test Positive

Health authorities reported on Saturday that five more patients and staff from three hospitals have tested positive for coronavirus, as Hong Kong remains gripped in a third wave of infections.

Officials are waiting for results of confirmatory tests, and are investigating exactly how the latest cases – at Eastern, Tuen Mun and Yan Chai Hospitals – caught the bug.

A spokesperson for Eastern Hospital said all patients who stayed in the same ward as a previously confirmed Covid-19 case were tested for the virus on Saturday, and the preliminary results for three of them came back positive.

Two patients, aged 70 and 78, had both been classified as close contacts and had been put in an isolation ward last Wednesday.

Another 64-year-old who tested positive had stayed in a different cubicle of the same ward but was not deemed a close contact.

All three are now being treated in isolation, and are in a stable condition.

The lone infection at Yan Chai Hospital involves a 44-year-old man who had initially tested negative for coronavirus when he was admitted on Thursday with pneumonia and diarrhea.

He was put in a general ward, but his symptoms persisted and he was tested again the next day.

This time, he tested positive for Covid-19, and was taken to the isolation ward for treatment, where he is now in a stable condition.

Eleven patients had stayed in the same cubicle as he did in the general ward – four of whom have already been discharged.

The seven remaining patients have been put into isolation, and health authorities are following up on the other four.

Three support staff who handled the patient's excrement, and cleaned up after him were also classified as close contacts and will be quarantined.

The other case reported on Saturday is of a nurse at Tuen Mun Hospital, who developed a sore throat last Tuesday, before going to work with a mild fever on Saturday morning.

She’s now being treated in isolation, and five other nurses and an assistant who had meals with her will also be quarantined for 14 days.

The hospital said initial investigations shows she had not had any contact with any Covid-19 patients over the past week at work.