HK's Daily Covid Caseload Tops 3,000

Health authorities on Thursday announced an additional 2,856 local coronavirus infections and 172 imported cases.

This brought the daily total above the 3,000-mark for the first time since April, when infections during the fifth wave began subsiding.

The Centre for Health Protection's Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan warned that judging from the trajectory from the past couple of weeks, the daily infection figure could climb to 6,000 in 14 days.

"As the case number goes up, the number and proportion of hospital admissions will go up," she said.

"There's a chance that hospitalisations, the need for intensive care and even the death toll may rise," she added.

Chuang also noted that data from the World Health Organisation shows the BA.5 subvariant of Omicron is becoming the dominant Covid strain in many places in the world and said health authorities are monitoring whether Hong Kong will follow suit.