HK Records Two Imported Covid Infections

Health officials on Friday reported two imported Covid-19 infections, with both patients asymptomatic.

The Centre for Health Protection said one of them, a 41-year-old man from Russia, was infected with the potentially more contagious L452R mutant strain.

The other patient is a woman who arrived from the United States and who was staying at the Dorsett Hotel in Wan Chai. Officials said the 36-year-old had received two doses of the BioNTech vaccine in Hong Kong in May, and had tested positive for antibodies at the end of June.

There were also about five preliminary positive cases, including a man who returned from the United States via Doha on Thursday.

Officials say the 32-year-old – who'd taken the BioNTech vaccines in April – didn't show any symptoms and had tested negative before he got on the plane in America.

He'd stayed at Sea View Mansion in Sheung Wan and went to work on 40-44 Bonham Strand from July 15 to 25, before flying to the US.

Residents of Sea View Mansion on Connaught Road West have been ordered to take a Covid test before midnight, and authorities say the restrictions on the building will be lifted at around 7am on Saturday.

The centre also said authorities in Japan had notified them that a fully-vaccinated woman who flew in from Hong Kong late last month had tested positive for the virus.

The residential block the 29-year-old lived in in Discovery Bay and her office at Mira Place in Tsim Sha Tsui have been put under a compulsory testing order.

The Labour Department, meanwhile, said domestic helpers from the Philippines and Indonesia will be able to come to work in Hong Kong starting Monday, provided they had been fully vaccinated in the SAR earlier.

The helpers will have to be quarantined for 21 days at a hotel of their choice, but the department said it is planning to centralise their quarantine to one to two hotels in future.

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