Hong Kong Logs 4,123 New Covid Cases

Health authorities on Tuesday reported 4,123 new Covid infections, 234 of them imported cases.

Another 171 Covid patients had been admitted to hospital, with the number currently receiving care standing at 1,536. Six people are in intensive care.

A chief manager with the Hospital Authority, Lau Ka-hin, said 11 patients had died in the past 24 hours.

He said the number of deaths each day has increased when compared to around a month ago.

"In early July, there were only a few [fatal] cases per day, one to two, or two to three. But in the recent week, there were an average of five to six deaths per day. Last Tuesday, we had 10. Today we have 11," Lau said.

"So what does this mean? It means there's an increasing number of infections in the community so there will be an increasing proportion of patients suffering in serious or critical condition. Some of them may die unfortunately."

Officials, however, said the overall fatality rate remains at 0.7 percent. They urged people who haven't been vaccinated to get jabbed, and those who have received only one or two doses to get a booster shot.

Separately, the head of the Centre for Health Protection's communicable disease branch, Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, said the government is talking to BioNTech about purchasing its Covid vaccine for young children, after learning from experts that it's not feasible to dilute adult doses.

A government pandemic adviser, David Hui, said studies have shown there aren't serious side-effects in young children who receive the German-made vaccine.

"In the phase two and phase three clinical trials, there were no cases of myocarditis or... death reported in any of the trial participants," he said.

"For [Sinovac's] CoronaVac, based on the information we got, the side-effects are also mainly local, such as injection site pain, some with fever, cough, some with diarrhoea and vomiting. There are no major side-effects also."

Hui also said that it would be a good idea to use the vaccine pass scheme to drive up the vaccination rate in all age groups.

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