7 new Covid-19 and 5 Omicron cases reported

By The SUN 

Omicron is now the dominant variant seen among arriving passengers in Hong Kong

Hong Kong health authorities have reported seven new confirmed cases of Covid-19, five of whom tested positive for the N501Y mutant strain commonly linked to the highly infectious Omicron variant.

The Centre for Health Protection also announced today, Dec 20, that after complete genome sequencing, five new Omicron cases were detected among travelers who arrived here on Dec 17 and 18. Hong Kong now has a total of 14 Omicron cases.

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One of the newly confirmed patients, a 33-year-old man who had flown from the United Kingdom, had insufficient viral load to test for the strain while a 78-year-old man who came from the United States had the L452R strain linked to the Delta variant.

Of the seven new cases, three had booster shots in the US between Nov 17 and Dec 15. The four others each had two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine.

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CHP also said that as three passengers who arrived aboard flight CX845 from New York on Dec 19 tested positive on at Hong Kong Airport, the flight has been suspended for two weeks, from Dec 20 to Jan 2.

A spokesman for the CHP said one of the three passengers was confirmed as positive in the US, so was not added to Hong Kong’s list of confirmed cases anymore.

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The two others who took the CX 845 flight were an 18-year-old female who carried the N501Y strain and a 78-year-old man who had the L452R strain.

The other patients who tested positive for the N501Y variant are a 28-year-old woman who came from the United Kingdom on Dec 18 aboard VS206, a 22-year-old male who also came from the UK on the same day but aboard CX216, another 22-year-old male who traveled from Poland, Germany and Qatar and took QR818 on Dec 18; and a 68-year-old man who flew in from the United States and Japan on Dec 17 and was quarantined at Penny’s Bay.

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They took Hong Kong’s total Covid-19 tally to 12,533 confirmed cases and one probable case.

Meanwhile, of the five newly reported Omicron cases, three were confirmed to have the N501Y mutant strain when they arrived on Dec 17. The other two were among five patients who arrived on Dec 18, and all had the N501Y strain as well.

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Three of the patients had arrived from the UK, one from Nigeria and another from Italy.

Among today’s cases, the man who came from Poland and German and took QR818 had lived in Hong Kong during the 21-day incubation period prescribed by local experts. Thus, Block 1 of Rambler Crest in Tsing Yi where he had stayed and other places he visited, will be put under compulsory testing notice.

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The patient left Hong Kong on Dec 7 and returned on Dec 18 where his specimen taken at the airport proved positive for coronavirus with the N501Y mutant strain.