HK Loses Three Covid Patients In Deadliest Day Yet

Hong Kong has gone through its deadliest day of the coronavirus crisis so far, with three Covid-related fatalities recorded in a single day.

All three patients were elderly. A 92-year-old man who lived in the epicentre of the ongoing outbreak, Tsz Wan Shan, died at Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Monday morning.

Later, health authorities confirmed the deaths of two more Covid patients: an 88-year-old man who lived at Choi Fai Estate in Ngau Chi Wan; and a 95-year-old woman who had close contact with an infected woman who lives in Choi Hung Estate in the same area.

While Hong Kong still has one of the world’s lowest case-fatality ratios, with 22 fatalities among 2,778 confirmed infections, the number of deaths has been accelerating at an alarming rate amid a 'third wave' of the epidemic here.

Ten Covid-19 patients have died over the past week alone, almost doubling the number of total fatalities for the entire pandemic.

Fifteen deaths have been recorded for July so far.

Alarmingly, with the virus affecting many care homes for the elderly, all of this month’s fatalities were of people of advanced age. The average age of those who died from Covid-19 this month, is 82.