New Covid Cases Drop Slightly To 2,644

Health authorities on Thursday reported a slight drop in the number of new coronavirus cases to 2,644.

Officials said 1,368 were confirmed via PCR tests in laboratories, while 1,276 were reported by people who took rapid self-tests.

As the city’s Omicron outbreak eases, the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said it has been discussing with the Education Bureau and schools on how to prevent the spread of Covid on campuses when classes resume after the Easter break.

Albert Au of the CHP said he doesn’t think the city could achieve zero Covid by then, so students might be asked to do self-tests before going to schools.

“Even if the number of infections continues to drop, there will still be new cases by the end of April. Some students will definitely be carrying the virus. Schools probably won’t close like they did in the past just because there’s one single case,” he said.

“The CHP will carry out epidemiological investigations and risk assessments before deciding whether classes should be suspended on a case-by-case basis.”

Meanwhile, the Hospital Authority reported that two patients who had Covid about three weeks ago collapsed at home on Wednesday and died shortly after they were taken to hospital.

One was a 27-year-old man who suffered from asthma and the other was a 52-year-old cancer patient. Both of them were unvaccinated.

The authority said it would look into the cases.

In all, the authority reported that another 97 people with Covid have died -- 90 of them passed away at public hospitals in the past day.

So far, more than 1.17 million people in Hong Kong have been confirmed with Covid and 8,344 have died in this Omicron outbreak, with a fatality rate of 0.71 percent.

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