By Daisy CL Mandap
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| All close contacts who share a toilet with a newly confirmed patient will be sent to Penny's Bay |
Health officials have revised their quarantine protocols for close contacts of people infected with Covid-19, so that those who share toilets with them will be sent to Penny’s Bay for quarantine.
This was disclosed by Dr Albert Au of the Centre for Health Protection today, as he reported an additional 1,179 infections, which included 94 imported cases. No new Covid-related death was reported.
Au said the self-reporting platform for Covid patients now asks if they share beds or toilets with other people in their households. If they do, they will all be sent to the quarantine facility.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
"We would pay attention to the address submitted by the patient. So if we understand there's only one toilet for most of the households in the building, then we would do more investigation... If it is found that they only have one toilet at home, they would be sent to a quarantine centre," he said.
Au said that if the authorities suspect that the patient did not provide correct information they will follow up.
Yesterday, he said the protocol was as before. Toilet sharing need not necessarily lead to close contacts being sent away for quarantine if they could show that it was possible to do a quick disinfection of the toilet each time it is used.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
While the infection tally has breached the 1,000 mark for the second straight day, Au said this was within expectation.
"We expect the trend to continue for some time, the main reason is that we are returning to normalcy and social distancing measures are being relaxed gradually,” he said.
He noted the numbers now are much lower than at the peak of the Omicron surge in February and March. Still, he said the government will continue to pay close attention to the situation as they don’t want to see an exponential growth in the cases.
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He made his statement as a new regulation requiring bar patrons to present a negative result for a rapid test taken within 24 hours to gain entry, took effect.
Au said people should not attempt to take the rapid test just before getting into a pub, as that could lead to cross infections in case they are infected.
Of the new local cases, 423 were from PCR test results while 622 were self-tests reported and confirmed by the authorities.
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| PINDUTIN PARA SA DETALYE |
The city’s total infection tally now stands at more than 1.22 million while the death toll is steady at 9,392.
CHP said 113 cases were reported from schools, involving 83 students and 30 teachers.
Cannan Kindergarten in Mong Kok has been told to suspend one of its classes after three students there tested positive.
No new cases were detected from
A total of 422 patients are receiving treatment at various public hospitals. Among them, 17 are in critical condition, including three who are in intensive care; while nine are in serious condition.
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| PADALA NA! |
