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| 3 Filipina domestic workers who flew into HK on Friday tested positive during tests at the airport |
Three
Filipina domestic helpers who flew in from Manila on Thursday and should have
presented a negative swab test result for Covid-19 before boarding their flights
to Hong Kong were among 46 new positive cases reported today.
This
was according to Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health Protection in the
press briefing today, Aug 15.
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“For
all incoming foreign domestic helpers in high-risk countries, we need them to
give a test report, but the policy here is we still hold them up until they
test negative, so it does not make a difference,” she said.
The
Filipinas were among seven imported cases. Three others were returnees from
India, who also should have presented a negative rest result for Covid-19
before boarding their flights to Hong Kong, in line with travel restrictions
put in place on Jul 25.
The
seventh is an air crew staff who flew in from Australia via Singapore.
Also
among the new cases is an Indonesian domestic helper who tested preliminary
positive yesterday while under quarantine. Case No 4401 had stayed in a
boarding house on the seventh floor of Haven Court on Leighton Road in Causeway
Bay, along with two other Indonesians who tested positive earlier.
Chuang
said the Indonesian helper moved to Haven Court on Jul 29, and was joined there
by the two previously infected patients. But between Jul 20 and 28, she lived in
another boarding house at 32 Jardine’s Bazaar, also in Causeway Bay.
For
the Haven Court residents, Chuang said everyone who was identified as close
contacts of the previously infected helpers had all been located and tested.
But she said they were still looking into any possible link to the Jardine’s
Bazaar hostel.
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| Haven Court in Causeway Bay, where 3 infected Indonesian DHs had stayed |
Among
the 39 local cases, 27 are linked to previous infections, and 24 of these
involved family members and friends gathering together. The other 12 are from
unknown sources.
The
most notable among the local cases were the three new infections detected at
the Kwai Chung container port, all of them staff of the Wang Kee & Company.
Including
the three new cases, Chuang said there are now eight patients from that company, and
another five who tested preliminary positive. She said the patient in charge of
the company has already been contacted, and about 100 of its staff will be
moved to quarantine centers.
Chuang
said the staff shared restrooms and changing rooms, and “that maybe the route
for transmission.”
Asked
if the drop in the number of cases could mean a relaxation of the stringent
gathering restrictions imposed by the government, Chuang said she did not think
so, citing the 12 cases whose source of infection is unknown.
She
also said the daily cases are still higher than the peak number in the second wave,
“so I don’t think there is room for relaxation.”
The
day’s tally brought the overall infection rate in the city to 4,407, with about
30 other people testing preliminary positive.
One
more elderly patient died over the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 67.
The patient was a 69-year-old man who succumbed at Pamela Youde Nethersole
Eastern Hospital.
There
are only 780 confirmed patients still in 20 public hospitals and the treatment
facilities at Lei Yue Mun and the AsiaWorld-Expo. Twenty-seven are in critical
condition, 47 are serious, and 706 are stable.
