By The SUN
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| All 3 infected travelers carried the mutant strain and 2 were fully vaccinated |
Three returnees from various places
were confirmed today, Jul 14, to have Covid-19, and all carried the L452R mutation.
Two of them are fully vaccinated, having had two shots of a coronavirus vaccine in March and April this year.
A statement issued by the Centre for Health Protection listed the new confirmed cases as a 53-year-old man who flew in from Namibia and a 47-year-old female who arrived from Cyprus, both on Jul 12 and tested positive at the airport; and a 37-year-old man who came from Ghana on Jul 9 and was found infected on his 3rd day of hotel quarantine.
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According to a staff member of the CHP, the man from Namibia had received the BioNTech vaccine in Hong Kong. The first shot was on Mar 19, and the second, on Apr 9. He developed symptoms on Jul 10, prior to boarding his flight to Hong Kong.
The second patient, who had flown in from Cyprus and was asymptomatic, had been given Gamaleya's Sputnik V vaccine in Moscow, Russia. She had her first dose on Mar 31 and the second, on Apr 21.
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Their cases reinforces experts’ warning that vaccination does not fully protect one from coronavirus, especially those from the highly infections mutant strains like the L452R commonly found in the Delta variant.
However, experts agree that vaccines protect one from serious Covid-19 complications.
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A report from Israel’s Ministry of Health published on Jul 5 showed that the efficacy rate of the BioNTech vaccine has declined significantly with the spread of the Delta variant and the cancellation of gathering restrictions.
From 94.3% between May 2 and June 5 this year its efficacy rate fell to just 64% in early July after the government canceled all coronavirus restrictions.
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However, the protection rate against hospitalization and serious illness was higher than ever. Between May 2 and June 5, the protection cover rose to 98.% compared with 93% from Jun 6 to Jul 3.
In Canada, the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine was found to 87% effective in preventing the Delta variant, and 89% against the Alpha variant, first identified in the United Kingdom.
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Today’s three imported cases pushed Hong Kong’s total infection tally to 11,955 confirmed and one probable cause.
A total of 31 cases have been reported in the past two weeks, 29 of them imported.
One was a ground staff at Hong Kong
airport whose infection was directly linked to a group of travelers from Indonesia.
The other, a porter at the airport, had the same genome as those found among travelers from Russia, but his genetic sequencing could not be linked directly to any of them. Health experts believe he may have been infected by an undiagnosed crew member of a Russian air cargo flight he had serviced.
