By
Daisy CL Mandap
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| Two Filipina DHs who were in hotel quarantine in HK were both found with the variant (File) |
Two Filipina domestic helpers are the only variant
carriers among seven new coronavirus cases recorded today, Apr 28, according to
the Center for Health Protection. Six of the new cases are imported while one
is local, and linked to a previous infection.
One of the Filipinas found with the variant is 29
years old, and flew in aboard Cebu Pacific flight 5J272 on Apr 19. She was found
positive when tested on her seventh day in quarantine at the MetroPark Hotel in
Homantin. However, she started having symptoms on Apr 24.
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The additional test during the quarantine period has
been put into effect only this week. Previously, a newly arrived traveler was
tested on arrival, and on the 12th and 19th day of the
hotel quarantine.
The second Filipina, who is 25 years old, arrived on Apr
14 aboard Cathay Pacific flight CX 906, which has been under an airline-specific
travel ban since Apr 19. She was found to carry the mutated virus on her 12th
day sample.
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Three other imported cases, aged 11, 39 and 63, all arrived
from Nepal via flight RA 409 on Apr 20. They tested positive on their 7th
day sample while spending their quarantine in different hotels.
The sixth and last imported case is a 6-month-old baby
girl who is the 57th patient to be detected from the virus-plagued
Vistara flight UK 6395 which flew into Hong Kong on Apr 4. It was also put
under the airline-specific ban for two weeks starting Apr 19.
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There was only one local case, and it involves a
28-year-old woman from Kwai Chung who is linked to previous infections.
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| An expert says quarantine rules should be relaxed for returning residents who are fully vaccinated |
Meanwhile, an epidemiologist from the University of Hong Kong has called on the government to relax quarantine rules for fully vaccinated returning residents to encourage more people to take the Covid jab.
“I think one of the things we’ve really got to look at
carefully is relaxing the quarantine for people arriving back in Hong Kong who
have been fully vaccinated because they don’t pose nearly as much risk as
arriving travelers who haven’t been vaccinated,” Prof. Benjamin Cowling has
been quoted as saying.
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“That would encourage a lot of people to get
vaccinated, that would bring the vaccine coverage up, and Hong Kong would be
safer as a result.”
So far, the only place where Hong Kong residents can
travel to without having to spend quarantine on their return is Singapore,
under a “travel bubble” recently forged between the two governments, and is due
to take effect on May 26.
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The Hong Kong government’s Covid-19 website shows 454,519
people, or nearly 7% of the total qualified population have so far received two
doses of either the Sinovac or BioNTech vaccine. Another 872,458 people, or
13.3% of those qualified to take the vaccine, have had at least one jab.
