The Current Covid Outbreak May Be The Worst Yet: CHP

Health authorities on Sunday warned that Hong Kong is seeing the most severe Covid-19 outbreak since the pandemic began last year, as official reported 115 new infections on Sunday.

However, Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health Protection said the authorities will hopefully be able to contain the outbreak more quickly this time, citing the increase in the city's testing capacity.

“It seems that it is more severe than the last wave, but it depends on the coming days… we have so far tightened some social distancing measures, increased the general awareness of the public and increased the testing. The testing so far is much easier than in the previous wave. Hopefully this will help find out more cases and speed up the control,” she said.

The latest infections include more staff and customers at Michelin-star restaurant 8 1/2 Otto e Mezzo Bombana in Central, as well as people linked to Stellar House in Wan Chai and Chuen Cheung Kui in Sheung Wan.

So far, more than ten infections have been linked to the three restaurants, and customers who've dined there over the past fortnight have been ordered to get tested by Thursday.

“We are more worried when both staff and customers at the restaurants are infected, as it means there might be transmissions at the eateries, especially some infected customers visited the restaurants on different days” said Chuang.

Meanwhile, a student at St Clare’s Primary School has been infected. Since a family member of the student works at St Paul's Co-educational college, both schools have been asked to suspend classes.

And, a hostel for disabled people in Shau Kei Wan is to be evacuated after a worker and a resident there came down with the virus.

A worker at an elderly care home in Tai Kok Tsui tested preliminary positive for the virus. Staff and residents there are to be tested for Covid-19.

Of the other local cases, 24 were via unknown sources.

Sixty-two patients were linked to an outbreak involving dance gatherings at studios across the city. This takes the total number of patients in this cluster to 479.

Twenty-three cases were linked to other previous infections, while there were six imported cases.

More than 50 other people tested preliminary positive for the virus.

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