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| People are again being asked to avoid going out as 30 new local cases were reported |
Thirty local cases of coronavirus infection in Hong Kong were confirmed today, Jul 12, prompting the
Centre for Health Protection to urge people to stay at home and admit the local
outbreak “is a little bit out of control”.
Four Filipinos who arrived from Manila
Two of the new arrivals from the Philippines
The other two are both men who appear to be sailors, aged 49
and 69. One arrived on Jul 9 and was sent to hospital from home quarantine,
while the other was referred by the Port Health Division after arriving on Jul
10. Both had fever and cough.
A third Filipina domestic worker was also found infected
after developing an itchy throat yesterday. The helper, aged 52, lives in the
same house in Tseung Kwan O as her employers and their 13-year-old daughter,
who all developed symptoms earlier.
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| Among the new cases are 4 recently-arrived Filipinos and a migrant worker infected at her employer's home |
CHP’s Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan said the new confirmed cases
brought Hong Kong ’s total tally to 1,469. The
source of 13 of today’s cases is unknown.
Responding to a query on when she expects the crisis to end,
Chuang replied that it does not seem like the contagion will stop soon.
“We’d like it to end as soon as possible but given the
current conditions, it doesn’t seem (like) it’s going to stop easily,” she said.
Chuang also said in response to another query: “We are
having more and more cases each day, so it is a little bit out of control.”
She said those infected live in different areas and go to work
in different industries and districts where they come into contact with various
persons, so infections increase.
“So, we need to be more careful. We need to maintain
personal hygiene, and we should avoid unnecessary gatherings, just as what we
did a few months ago, that can help slow down the outbreak,” Chuang said.
She said if people stayed at home and had less interaction, Hong Kong could slow down the outbreak. At the same time,
she said the government should tighten distancing measures to curb the spread
of the virus.
Chuang urged people living in the areas where there had been
outbreaks in recent days to go for testing immediately if they feel unwell. They
shouldn’t wait for the CHP to hand out sample bottles as that would be “time
consuming and the yield would be very low,” she said.
She expressed concern that more taxi drivers are getting
infected in the third wave of the contagion, with another cab driver among the
confirmed cases today.
The CHP official also noted the risk of getting infected in
tutorial centers, saying the cramped space in such institutions could easily
spread the disease.
An 11-year-old female student of Po Leung Kuk Lam Man Chan
Primary School and her mother also tested positive, and so did a 7-year-old boy
who went to Chun Yin Education Centre for tutorial, Chuang said.
She said CHP was contact-tracing more than 10 pupils who attended
the same tutorial school as the boy patient.
Two teenage female students at Good Hope School
An Immigration officer at the Shenzhen Bay
She said another man, also 48, who tested positive today, said
he went to a bar in Tsimshatsui late on Jul 1, but forgot its name.
Dr Sara Ho, Hospital Authority chief manager, said a total
of 205 confirmed patients are currently hospitalized in 10 hospitals. Four of
them are in critical condition, three are in serious condition, and the
remaining 198 are in stable condition.
Earlier today, Gabriel Matthew Leung, dean of the Li Ka
Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University
of Hong Kong
Leung, a public health authority, cited a research that indicated
the virus has mutated. He said this is just the beginning of the local outbreak
and the situation is more serious than at the start of the infection in January.
He said Hong Kong ’s virus
detection capability was ahead of the world but has not continued to improve.
He added the public medical system and university laboratories are not enough
to cope with the outbreak and need help from the private medical sector.
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| PADALA NA! |
