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Wednesday, May 13, 2020, 21:54
HK sees 3 new cases, ending streak of no local infections
By Gu Mengyan
Wednesday, May 13, 2020, 21:54 By Gu Mengyan

A cleaner collects rubbish at block 5 of Lei Muk Shue Estate in Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong, May 13, 2020, as health authorities confirmed a woman living in the block had contracted COVID-19 on the same day. (PARKER ZHENG / CHINA DAILY)

HONG KONG - Hong Kong’s 23-day streak without a single case of local coronavirus transmission has come to an end as a 66-year-old woman and her granddaughter tested positive, health officials said Wednesday. 

One new imported case of COVID-19 caused by a novel coronavirus was also reported, bringing the city's infection tally to 1,050.

READ MORE: COVID-19: HK reports no new local cases for 23 days

The city is just five days short of reaching a threshold some health experts have said could signal containment efforts had succeeded.

The grandmother lives in Lei Muk Shue Estate in Tsuen Wan and has no recent travel history, said Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Communicable Disease Branch of the Centre for Health Protection.

Seven other family members of the woman tested negative, but six showed symptoms like a mild fever or a cough, and have been admitted to hospitals

The woman, who was a regular visitor to a wet market in the district but had few other activities, developed symptoms on Friday. Chuang said the source of her infection remains unknown.

Her five-year-old granddaughter, whom the woman had recently cared for, was also confirmed as infected. The girl lives in another apartment in Tsuen Wan.

Seven other family members of the woman tested negative, but six showed symptoms like a mild fever or a cough, and have been admitted to hospitals.

The girl went to a tutorial center on Saturday before she developed a cough two days later. She also dined with some other family members on Saturday. The teachers and students at the center, as well as the family members she dined with, will be tested for the virus, Chuang said.

She added that owners of the stands the grandmother had visited, as well as all the residents sharing the residential buildings with the two patients, will also have the coronavirus test.

HKU top microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung said the new local cases with unknown sources are very alarming, and there could be multiple invisible transmission chains in the local community

The new imported case is a 34-year-old man who flew back from Pakistan on Saturday. He tested negative upon arrival at the testing center in AsiaWorld Expo and was then sent to government quarantine facilities, where he developed symptoms of the disease on Tuesday.

Yuen Kwok-yung, a top microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, said the new local cases with unknown sources are very alarming, and there could be multiple invisible transmission chains in the local community.

Speaking on a radio program on Wednesday, he said if this is an isolated case and no other related cases emerge in the next 14 days, the plan for school and work resumption don’t have to be changed. But social distancing measures shouldn’t be further relaxed, he added.

Echoing Yuen’s concerns, Ho Pak-leung, head of HKU’s Centre for Infection, said the city’s anti-infection measures cannot be scaled back now.

“There must be at least one more case related to the 66-year-old woman. I’m worried there could be an infection cluster,” said the leading infectious disease expert on Wednesday.

Ho said the women could be infected by someone returning from overseas and under home quarantine. He urged the government to test all residents in the same block where further confirmed patients live.

ALSO READ: HK's edge over Singapore shows early social distancing works

Hong Kong has been among the most successful in taming the spread of infections, with weeks of only a handful of imported cases.

With Bloomberg inputs

jefferygu@chinadailyhk.com


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