'Lockdown May Be Needed At Covid-hit Estate'

A government adviser said on Tuesday that a lockdown may be needed at a Covid-hit public housing estate in Kwai Chung if more residents in different blocks are found to be infected.

There are more than a dozen coronavirus patients so far at the Kwai Shing West Estate, most of them residents of flats on the same floor of the same block.

But Chinese respiratory medicine professor David Hui said a new infection has been found in another block at the estate, and while he doesn't think this is linked to the other cases, any more infections could merit a lockdown of the estate.

“If that area, that estate sees many blocks with infections, then you should be careful, the whole area will have to be sealed off,” said Hui.

With most of the infections on the fifth floor of Block 8, all the remaining residents there have been put into quarantine.

But on a radio show, Hui said he believes everybody in the entire building should also be forced to take a test for Covid-19.

Meanwhile, another infectious disease expert, Ho Pak-leung from the University of Hong Kong, reiterated his call for Block 8 to be sealed off.

Ho criticised the government for not ordering mandatory tests for all of the residents.