Unknown Covid-19 Cases Return, Contacts Quarantined

For the first time in three days, Hong Kong has reported local coronavirus cases with an unknown source of infection.

These accounted for half of the six local cases announced by health authorities on Thursday.

One of the patients is a 52-year-old woman who lives in Mong Kok and works at a dim sum restaurant at Chong Hing Square in the same area.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan from the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said 17 other staff members at the restaurant will be quarantined as a precaution.

“She was working during the infectious period and also she had breakfast and lunch at the workplace… where the colleagues may interact with each other,” Chuang said.

Another patient, a 57-year-old Yau Tong woman, is an office worker at an NGO in Kwun Tong. Five of her colleagues were being tested for Covid-19.

The third case that could not be traced involved a 24-year-old unemployed man in Tin Shui Wai.

The CHP resumed its daily press conference on Thursday after deciding not to brief the media in the past two days in the absence of cases that could not be traced.

Chuang insisted not briefing the media did not mean the threat posed by Covid-19 to the community was easing, and that people need to remain vigilant.

Three other local infections were traced to previous cases.

There were also three imported cases on Thursday, with the patients coming to the city from the UK and Iran.

Meanwhile, with the Covid situation stabilising in Hong Kong, the Hospital Authority said it will suspend the operation of the community treatment facility at AsiaWorld-Expo.

Almost 700 people had been treated at the 500-bed facility since it opened on August 1.

Still, undersecretary for food and health Chui Tak-yi said the government will continue to expand treatment facilities as it prepares for the worst-case scenario.

“It’s a proactive plan of the government to prepare for the fourth wave… the fourth wave or the winter wave may come very likely, and also we have to be well prepared for an even bigger number of new cases per day, up to hundreds per day,” he said.