'Runaway Covid Patient Tried To Escape Before'

Health authorities said on Saturday that a coronavirus patient, who is still on the run after he fled from his isolation room at Queen Elizabeth Hospital on Friday evening, had attempted another escape the day before.

The police are still looking for the 63-year-old man.

A chief manager of the Hospital Authority, Dr. Linda Yu, said hospitals have been keeping an eye on patients, but the escape might have happened because the man had "moved too fast" and hospital staff were busy with other tasks.

Yu said the man had left his room before and only returned after staff advised him to go back, and added the patient had been uncooperative when medics tried to do check-ups.

She stressed that it is unlikely that medics or other patients in the hospital would be infected, since the man was wearing a mask.

"The patient is all along stable, conscious, and didn't report any symptoms. Before his escape, he didn't have any abnormal behaviour... We appeal to the confirmed patients to cooperate with our healthcare staff to receive appropriate care in the hospital and to minimise the risk of transmitting the infection to the public," she said.

Officials reported 109 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, 102 of which are locally acquired, 42 via unknown sources.

Around 70 people have tested preliminary positive for the virus.

Authorities have also issued a mandatory Covid-19 testing order for residents of King Tsui Court in Chai Wan, as an infection cluster there grows.

The Centre for Health Protection reported two new infections from the housing block, with one coming from a new unit there.

A total of six flats have been affected so far, with two of them facing the same direction but eight floors apart.

The centre's spokesperson, Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, said authorities would not consider the situation to be an outbreak just yet, but they want to play it safe.

"We cannot find any obvious pattern of clustering, either horizontal or vertical. So if the residents got infected from the building, it may be due to some environmental encounters or environmental contamination. We cannot establish an obvious link among the cases yet," she said.

Another compulsory testing order has also been issued for people living in block 6 of Richland Gardens in Kowloon Bay to get tested for a second time.

Infection clusters are still growing at other housing blocks, with Kwai Tung House in Wong Tai Sin and Ming Lai House in Ngau Chi Wan each seeing one more case.