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| Today's case is the 7th case in a week of someone arriving from Manila with the coronavirus |
A 39-year-old woman who just arrived from Manila
tested positive for Covid-19 today, Jun 27, becoming Hong Kong’s 1,197th
case.
Records from the Centre for Health Protection shows
the woman, likely a domestic worker, had stayed in the Philippines from Dec 23
last year until she arrived in Hong Kong yesterday.
She was taken directly from the AsiaWorld-Expo testing
center to Princess Margaret Hospital in Kowloon for treatment. She was
asymptomatic.
The new patient is the seventh new arrival from the
Philippines who tested positive in Hong Kong within the past week alone. Most of them were apparently FDWs as they didn’t have any listed address in the city.
But many of the new imported cases in Hong Kong involve
residents arriving from Pakistan. In one day alone last week, 29 new arrivals
from Pakistan were found infected, and two days later, 16 others also tested
positive.
The big number of infected patients who test positive
on arrival from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh has prompted the Hong Kong
government to put them in quarantine centers pending the result of their Covid-19
tests.
In the case of Filipino migrant workers, however, the practice has been to let them spend home quarantine with their employers.
But with the recent spike in the number of newly arrived overseas Filipino workers who test positive on arrival, the government now says it may stop employers allowing the helpers to spend their quarantine in their homes.
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| Home quarantine rules: Filipino DHs may soon not be allowed to do this anymore |
Secretary for Labour and Welfare Law Chi-kwong said in
an interview with reporters today that his office is in talks with the
Department of Health to add a condition to the quarantine orders for FDWs that
they are not suitable for home quarantine.
“Because we have seen in the last month, Hongkongers
coming back from the Philippines have a 0.65 per cent infection rate,” he said.
Using employment agency estimates that up to
10,000 domestic workers might arrive from the Philippines in the next few
weeks, Law said that could mean an additional 65 new infections among them.
“If they are to be quarantined at home, then
there will be a pretty high chance of them spreading the virus in the community,”
Law said, but did not make reference to pre-quarantine tests made at the
airport, which led to the early detection of cases among the new arrivals from
Manila.
Law ruled out putting up the migrant workers
in quarantine centers, as what a group of employment agencies suggested last
week. He said there will not be enough room in the quarantine facilities, but the Labour Department would provide employers with information on cheap hotels.
At present, Hong Kong has three quarantine
centers which could accommodate up to 2,323 people, but this number will
soon be reduced by more than half as the largest facility, the Chun Yeung
public housing estate in Fo Tan, will stop operating as such in July.
