Hong Kong Logs 237 New Covid Cases

Health authorities on Sunday reported 237 new Covid-19 cases, as they continued to look into whether the BA.2.12.1 subvariant of Omicron has seeped further into the community.

Officials said their tracing work showed that three people from the same family, who tested positive for Covid last week, had visited the McDonald's in Cityplaza in Taikoo Shing on the same day as a 64-year-old woman found to be carrying BA.2.12.1.

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said it was waiting for the results of DNA analysis and sequencing to find out if these three family members, who live in Quarry Bay, also have the subvariant.

"There was an overlap of more than 10 minutes between their visits... at the moment, we cannot confirm if these three infections are linked to the 64-year-old woman," said the CHP's Albert Au.

The 64-year-old had flown in from the US and had completed her hotel quarantine before testing positive at a community centre.

Of the newly reported patients, 25 of them recently flew in from overseas.

Officials said they were investigating the infection of a man who arrived from Singapore and tested positive at a community centre 12 days later.

They said the 46-year-old had a relatively high viral load and they were conducting DNA analysis to find out whether he was infected in Hong Kong or abroad.