Hong Kong Records 24th Covid Death

The Hospital Authority has confirmed that a coronavirus patient died on Wednesday morning, taking the death toll linked to Covid-19 in the SAR to 24.

The 76-year-old female patient had multiple chronic illnesses, and is believed to have contracted the virus at a ward at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

She suffered from shortness of breath caused by a heart failure at the end of last month and stayed at the same ward as the first patient in the cluster, a 92-year-old woman who was confirmed later to have coronavirus.

She was considered a close contact and subsequently tested positive for the virus.

Her condition deteriorated last week and passed away today.

While Hong Kong still has one of the world’s lowest case-fatality ratios, with 24 fatalities among 2,884 confirmed infections, the number of deaths has been accelerating at an alarming rate amid a 'third wave' of the epidemic.

Ten Covid-19 patients have died over the past week alone, almost doubling the number of total fatalities for the entire pandemic.

Seventeen deaths have been recorded for July so far.