By Daisy CL Mandap
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| Luxe Manor where the girl linked to a Macau case had stayed, was locked down overnight |
Thirteen places linked to a construction worker who tested preliminary positive and a 13-year-old girl who was identified as a close contact of a Covid-19 patient in Macau found to carry the Delta variant.
A residential block in Sham Shui Po and a hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui which were linked to the two were also put under overnight lockdown as a precaution.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
Residents of Block A of Tung Lo Court on Tai Po Road
and guests at the Luxe Manor on Kimberly Road were required to remain inside
the premises and undergo testing.
At a press conference earlier Wednesday, health
officials said the construction worker tested preliminary positive but his
viral load was low so his specimen could not be tested for the presence of a
variant.
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He also tested positive for antibodies, suggesting an
old infection.
“We believe that this was an earlier case, a
re-positive case,” said Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health
Protection, who added that the man was “tested again and again.”
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
As to when the man got infected, Chuang said they
could not be sure. But since he got tested regularly recently, it was likely
that the man was infected much earlier, like as early as March, or before he
was subjected to regular tests starting in May this year.
However, she could not say why the man’s infection was
not found during tests conducted on him earlier.
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| Tung Lo Court in Sham Shui Po where the construction worker lives |
Since it could not be ascertained if his case involved
a mutant variant, three other people in the subdivided flat where he lived in Tung Lo court would be moved to a quarantine center.
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The thirteen places he visited, including two Wanchai construction sites where he had worked during
the incubation period, were also put under compulsory testing.
Chuang said the man will be added to Thursday’s list of Covid-19 cases if further tests confirm his infection. That would make him the first local case to be recorded in Hong Kong after 57 days.
Meanwhile, the 13-year-old girl who was identified as
a close contact of a Covid-19 patient in Macau has been moved to a quarantine
center along with two family members. The three entered Hong Kong on Aug 2
under the Return2hk Scheme, and stayed at the Luxe Manor.
Their test results before leaving Macau were all negative.
However, since the Macau case involved a mutant strain, the hotel they had
stayed in was locked down overnight.
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| Tunghayan ang isa na namang kwentong Dream Love |
Hong Kong also suspended the quarantine-exempt
privilege of new arrivals from Macau as part of the Return2hk Scheme. Residents
who come in from Macau will now have to spend 14 days in home quarantine.
The suspension of the quarantine-free arrangement
under Return2hk Scheme was later extended to all parts of China except
Guangdong.
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| Chuang faces reporters again for the first suspected local case in nearly 2 months |
All the places the girl had been to since arriving in
Hong Kong on Aug 2, including the buses she took from Macau to Hong Kong, and
then on to her hotel, have been listed under a compulsory testing notice.
Two imported cases were also reported Wednesday, both
involving the L452R mutant strain of the coronavirus.
The first is a 48-year-old woman who came from the
United States on Jul 29 and tested positive on Day 5 of her quarantine at
Sheraton Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui. She is fully vaccinated.
The second is a 31-year-old woman who flew in from
Dubai, United Arab Emirates on Jul 31 and was found infected on her third-day
test while in quarantine at the Dorsett Hotel in Kwun Tong. She is
unvaccinated.
Chuang said 205 cases involving the L452R variant have been detected in Hong Kong so far, and 112 of these were linked to the Delta variant.
