New Case At Mong Kok Hotel Forces Evacuation Of 20

Health officials said on Friday that they are evacuating 20 people from a Mong Kok hotel to quarantine centres after one more guest there came down with Covid-19 while another tested positive in preliminary screening.

Two elderly people staying there had contracted the disease earlier this week and one of them had died at a hospital.

The Centre for Health Protection's (CHP) Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan said the latest confirmed case was also on the same floor as the earlier two, but did not know them.

Chuang said authorities have now decided to move all other guests staying on that floor and the staff linked to the floor to isolation centres. All guests staying at the hotel as well as rest of the staff will be given coronavirus tests.

The CHP also said 12 new Covid-19 cases have been added to the total tally on Friday, of which five were imported cases. Of the seven local infections, five had no known source.

Meanwhile, the Hospital Authority said a box containing 13 saliva samples had gone missing from a general out-patient clinic in Tseung Kwan O after a 82-year-old man took it to shield himself during a heavy rain.

A chief manager with the authority, Dr Linda Yu, said the elderly man had come to collect his medicine when the rain started. He took the box to protect himself when he walked back and left it at a nearby car park.

Yu said the samples were properly sealed when they were found, but nevertheless officials would ask the patients to provide the samples again.

The hospital authority has apologised over the incident.