Tai Po Residents Urged To Stay Alert Against Covid

An infectious disease expert has urged residents in Tai Po to minimise their social activities and consider working from home for a week or two after the district saw a number of untraceable coronavirus infections recently.

Speaking on an RTHK programme on Monday, Dr Joseph Tsang of the Hong Kong Medical Association said residents there have to be “very alert”.

“Try to minimise dining out especially in Tai Po area, because we all know that whenever we take off our masks, the likelihood of getting infections will somehow be increased," he said.

“If they worry about this issue, [they] can temporary arrange the nature of their jobs – I mean, staying at home to carry out their job, I think this is possible,” he said, adding such arrangement could last until it’s clear that the cases are “episodic” and not an outbreak.

There were nine Covid-19 cases in Tai Po in the past week, with seven of them linked to a group of people who went on a staycation on Lantau last month.

Tsang said private doctors should also advise anybody from the area who are showing respiratory symptoms to be tested for Covid-19.

Health authorities are handing out testing kits to residents, and have set up three testing centres there to collect saliva specimens.

Tsang said the government should beef up testing capacities there to identify Covid carriers quickly, and should consider mandatory tests for targeted groups in Tai Po if more residents come down with the disease.

"It all depends on how the outbreak evolves, if there are more cases within a short period of time, some mandatory testing for particular estates has to somehow be launched or executed," he said.