Skyscrapers lining Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong put on a show of lights on Friday in support of medical workers fighting on the front line against the novel coronavirus. (EDMOND TANG / CHINA DAILY)
HONG KONG-Hong Kong health experts have advised against tomb-sweeping during this weekend and warned of an “invisible” chain of local coronavirus infections, as the city reported on Friday three cases of local transmission with unknown infection sources.
The three patients included a 48-year-old Cathay Pacific ground worker who attended a funeral with a dozen of his relatives in late March. The other two are an office worker and a driver. Hong Kong reported another two unclear local cases on Thursday, including a beauty salon employee.
Yuen Kwok-yung, microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, said emerging cases with unknown infection sources show that the current measures have failed to cut off invisible transmissions of COVID-19 in the community, and that people are becoming complacent.
To minimize the risk of cross-infections, Deputy Secretary for Food and Health Chui Tak-yi urged residents to postpone their tomb-sweeping plans during the Ching Ming Festival.
This traditional ritual usually attracts more than 200,000 people at public cemeteries. Grave sweeping is not exempt from the latest regulation that bans public gatherings of more than four people.
Yuen, also a government adviser, suggested health authorities share statistics about how much time hospitals need to admit people after their infections are confirmed. If this takes too long, they are likely to transmit the virus into the community, he added.
Hong Kong’s e-payment operator Octopus agreed on Thursday to offer its data to HKU’s Faculty of Medicine to study transmission chains of the virus.
The faculty’s dean, Gabriel Leung Cheuk-wai, said transport and shopping records from Octopus cards make it easier to track infection chains and identify potential contagion risks in different districts.
The infectious disease expert had earlier estimated that about 40 percent of confirmed patients are infected by “silent carriers” – those carrying the coronavirus but displaying no symptoms.
Hong Kong recorded 43 new cases on Friday, taking its total number of cases to 845. At least five new patients had visited bars or were connected to confirmed patients who had visited or worked at bars.
Health authorities are still investigating whether a man, returning from the Netherlands in mid-March, was infected after he later went drinking in pubs.
The latest count came an hour before the government’s order to close all bars and pubs for two weeks took effect at 6 pm on Friday.
So far, at least 74 COVID-19 patients were found to have visited bars and pubs in the city during the incubation period. They spread the disease into the community, infecting at least 16 of their family members and friends who had not been to any public bars.
Friday’s latest patients are aged between 16 and 60. Thirty-four of them had recently returned from overseas, including a nurse in Tuen Mun Hospital who came back from London in late March. She was not assigned to care for COVID-19 patients and had been on leave since March 9.
The Hospital Authority said 60 patients in good condition have been transferred to “second-tier” isolation beds to make more isolation beds available for new patients.
