Hong Kong Surpasses 4,000 Covid-19 Cases

The number of coronavirus cases in Hong Kong inched past 4,000 on Saturday, as health authorities reported another 69 infections.

At a daily news briefing, Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health Protection said the new infection figures are dropping but only slowly, and the numbers are still high.

She warned that there could easily be another wave of infections if people lower their guard, so it is necessary to keep the social distancing measures.

“There’re still chances of rebound of the figure because if anyone of them… if they’re highly infectious and attend some social activities that can generate a lot of secondary infections and cause a major outbreak," she said.

She added that despite the falling figures, plans to build temporary hospitals are still "appropriate" to better prepare for possible future outbreaks.

All but two of the new cases are locally transmitted infections. More than half of them are linked to previously confirmed cases.

The new cases include two staff members at an elderly care home in Sham Shui Po, bringing the number of infections linked to the facility to 14.

There is also one more case linked to a direct marketing firm, which has seen a cluster of close to 60 infections.

A driver who worked at an MTR depot in Kowloon Bay has come down with the disease. The centre said it had asked the depot to step up cleansing after about five cases are found to be linked to the site.

A nurse at Tuen Mun Hospital developed a fever during work on Saturday morning. Preliminary results show she tested positive for the virus.

The latest cases bring the total number of coronavirus cases in Hong Kong to 4,007, with 47 fatalities.