'HK Will Continue To See Sporadic Covid-19 Cases'

A respiratory disease expert advising the government says Hong Kong will likely continue to see sporadic Covid-19 cases, as the authorities try to trace where a woman and her granddaughter recently caught the new coronavirus in the city.

Professor David Hui from Chinese University said there's no need for people to need to panic as long as those who had come into close contact with the patients have been quarantined.

"The difficulty with this new virus is that it's highly infectious, and the fact that we still allow Hong Kong residents to return from overseas – and this is the likely source of the infection in the community – some probably will shed the virus after the 14 days home quarantine period," he said.

"So I think we have to accept this; we will have sporadic cases occasionally, as long as the sporadic cases are not leading to major community transmission, then we can still continue the usual activities."

Hui said that plans to resume classes starting from next week will depend on whether recent reports of new local cases will lead to a widespread community outbreak.

"If it is only a sporadic case, and all the close contacts who developed illness are already in hospitals [and] not leaking the virus to the community, then I think the schools can resume on the 27th."

He also told RTHK's Joanne Wong that the Department of Health and Hospital Authority are able to test 5,000 people per day, but if more people could be tested they could catch patients with minor symptoms.

Hui's comments echoed those of Dr Leung Chi-chiu, the chairman of the Medical Association's advisory committee on communicable diseases.

Leung told an RTHK programme on Thursday that because so many people are entering Hong Kong every day, it might be impossible to stop the spread of Covid-19 completely.

He said that a target of 28 consecutive days of no local transmissions in order to fully relax social distancing measures may be unrealistic, and said that the authorities should expand community screening for the coronavirus.

The advice came after health officials confirmed on Wednesday that a 66-year-old woman and her 5-year-old granddaughter had caught Covid-19 despite having no recent travel history.

The announcement broke Hong Kong's streak of more than three weeks with no local transmissions. All recent confirmed cases were imported.

Hong Kong has recorded 1,050 Covid-19 cases so far.