Kwun Tong Care Home Residents Put In Quarantine

About 80 residents and staff of a care home for the disabled in Kwun Tong have been sent to a quarantine centre after one resident was confirmed to have Covid-19 and two workers tested preliminary positive for the virus.

Officials found that one of the staff members who contracted the virus visited a relative last month who was later confirmed to be infected.

But Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health Protection said she was not sure whether the member of staff was the one who brought the virus into the care home.

“It’s possible that she acquired the infection from her [relative]. But as she’s asymptomatic, it’s difficult to say when she carried the virus. And there are two linked cases to her, one is another staff member and the other is a resident. Preliminarily, we consider that there’s an epidemiological link between these cases,” she said.

This comes as the centre recorded 26 new coronavirus infections on Tuesday, 21 of them locally acquired.

Officials were unable to trace the source of infection for five of the new patients, including a homeless person.

Three more residents of Wai Lee Building in Quarry Bay were confirmed to have the infection while another two tested preliminary positive for the virus.

Chuang said she hoped all the Covid-19 cases at the building have now been identified since all the residents there have been tested. So far, a total of nine residents of the block have been found to be infected.

Across Hong Kong, 20 other people have tested preliminary positive for the virus.