Kwun Tong Estate Residents To Get Covid Test

Coronavirus tests are to be done on residents of a Kwun Tong housing estate where an elderly Covid-19 patient had lived, before she moved to a Yuen Long elderly care home, the health officials said on Wednesday.

This comes as the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) reported eight new coronavirus cases in the city, of which just one was local and the source of infection in that case was not known.

The CHP's Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan said the local case was the 71-year-old elderly woman who lived at the Yuen Long Home for the Elderly and tested preliminary positive on Tuesday.

She said the patient, who has dementia, went to Pok Oi Hospital for a non-Covid-related issue and had shown no Covid-19 symptoms, but tests during her admission found antibodies for the coronavirus in her.

More than 60 residents and 19 members of staff at the Yuen Long care home were quarantined after this and so far no one has tested preliminary positive.

Chuang said the woman in question had just moved into the care home on September 21, and before that she lived with her family at Tsui Mei House in Tsui Ping Estate in Kwun Tong.

Chuang said the viral load in the patient was very low and doctors suspect she may have caught the bug some time ago. So they decided to carry out tests at the building where she used to live in Kwun Tong.

"There's a possibility that she has acquired the infection during her stay in the community in Kwun Tong already, or there's a slight possibility she acquired it during the elderly home stay because usually it takes around 10 days for the antibody to develop," she said.

As a precaution, specimen bottles will be handed to residents at Tsui Ping Estate and Fung Cheung Building in Yuen Long where the elderly home is located.

Also attending the Covid-19 briefing was under secretary for Food and Health, Dr Chui Tak-yi, who reminded people to stay vigilant ahead of the mid-autumn and National Day festivities and also as the authorities prepare to ease another raft of social distancing measures.

“I think the different residential care homes would have their current visiting policy, so of course in general I think visiting is not very advisable at this moment because of the situation in the community," he said.