Tuen Mun Colleges To Shut As Student Catches Covid

Two tertiary institutions will be closed for two weeks after an 18-year-old student came down with Covid-19.

The student of Tuen Mun Youth College, under the Vocational Training Council, began developing symptoms on October 4, and last attended school the following day.

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) has linked her to the China Secret bar cluster.

The centre has advised the Institute of Vocational Education, which is connected to the college, to also close for two weeks. Health authorities said there’s a “mixing” of students from the two schools and they share some facilities.

Bottles will be distributed to students and staff at the two institutions for Covid-19 tests.

The student's infection was one of 11 reported in Hong Kong on Monday.

Five of them were local infections, including two more residents from a care home for disabled people in Kwai Chung. This took the total number of people infected at Home of Treasure to 17.

Another new local patient was a 23-year-old Pakistani woman.

She flew into the city on July 11 and stayed at a quarantine centre in Fo Tan for two weeks, where she tested negative for the virus twice.

She gave birth at Kwong Wah Hospital on August 27.

On Saturday, the woman was taken to hospital after suffering back pain.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the CHP said the woman tested “weak positive” for the virus, while she also had the antibodies.

Chuang said it's not clear yet whether the woman contracted the virus in Pakistan or Hong Kong.

"It's a possible locally-linked case, but there is also a possibility that she's an imported case because she had a travel history from Pakistan in July and her antibody has tested positive, but of course we cannot exclude that she's a locally acquired case from the community," Chuang said.

Bottles will be distributed to residents of the public housing block in Cheung Sha Wan where she lives.

The six imported cases on Monday involved people who flew in from France, Germany, the UK, Switzerland and India.

Health authorities also said fewer than 10 people had tested preliminary positive.