'Too Early To Say Local Transmission Chain Broken'

A health official says it is still too early to say that the chain of transmission for Covid-19 is broken in Hong Kong, even though the city has not seen a locally acquired infection for 15 days in a row.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan from the Centre for Health Protection said on Monday that a 27-year-old female Hong Kong resident has become the latest person to test positive for the new coronavirus, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 1,040.

Chuang said the woman had returned from the US on Monday morning. The patient had previously lost her sense of smell and taste, and suffered from a sore throat for a week in April, but recovered and did not consult a doctor.

Upon arrival, she gave a deep throat saliva sample at Asia-World Expo, which came back positive.

Although the only confirmed cases in the last two weeks have been people who had recently returned to Hong Kong, Chuang said it was still too early to jump to conclusions.

"Although we have observed already one incubation period since the situation is getting better now, but we cannot conclude that the local transmission chain has been stopped," she said.

She said the government needs to consider various factors before relaxing the social distancing measures, adding that it was "not appropriate" to relax rules on face masks just yet.

There are still asymptomatic patients, and face masks help to contain the spread of the virus, she said.

Meanwhile, Dr Lau Ka-hin from the Hospital Authority confirmed that as of Monday, a total of 899 coronavirus patients had been discharged from hospital.

He said 136 Covid-19 patients were still in hospital, of which one was in a critical condition, and six were in a serious condition.