Scare At Quarantine Centre After Staffer Gets Covid

Health authorities said on Friday that people undergoing quarantine at the Pok Fu Lam isolation centre will be given tests after a staff member working there was confirmed to have contracted Covid-19.

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said that the 22-year-old woman had previously worked for the Kong Tai Care for the Aged Centre in Tsz Wan Shan, which is one of the care homes that was at the centre of one of the biggest clusters of Covid-19 infections in the third wave.

The centre's Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan said that the employee was wearing protective gear at the Pok Fu Lam facility, and no close contacts have been identified, but as a precaution they will stop admitting people to the quarantine centre and test those staying there now.

There was no information available about the number of people staying there now.

Other staff at the centre will also be tested to see if there are any asymptomatic carriers among them.

"According to our preliminary investigation, she also worked in another elderly home in the early parts of July in Kong Tai when there was an outbreak there. So there’s a slight possibility that she got infected there... but we cannot ascertain this according to [our] investigation findings at the moment," Chuang said.

She said that as a precaution they will not admit anyone to the quarantine centre for the time being.

Hong Kong, meanwhile, reported 89 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, bringing the total number of confirmed cases in the city to 3,938. There are also about 50 preliminary positive cases.

The CHP confirmed that among the new cases, only eight were imported. Forty-nine were linked to previous cases, and authorities are still trying to track the source of infection for 32 patients.

Among the new cases, five are linked to the Star Global marketing firm cluster, one is a taxi driver, and another is a part-time fish vendor at Tai Po Market.

The centre added that with the help of the police, they found that one of the foreign domestic helpers who had tested positive for the Covid-19 virus had stayed in Haven Court in Causeway Bay for a few days late last month and last week.

Contact tracing is still ongoing and authorities have not yet been able to find the relevant landlords.

Chuang was also asked about the effectiveness of the universal testing programme announced by the government, as it was voluntary.

She said the authorities are already doing mass testing for high-risk groups and the rationale of the new plan is the same, only that it is to be expanded to cover more people.

Asked whether the overwhelmed public hospitals will have enough manpower and beds to deal with the potential surge in confirmed patients after the launch of universal testing, the Hospital Authority's chief manager Dr Lau Ka-hin said they may scale down more non-emergency services to the public.