Housing Department staff members check whether a resident of Yat Kwai House, Kwai Chung Estate had been tested for COVID-19 on Jan 19, 2022. (PHOTO / HKSAR GOVERNMENT)

HONG KONG – The overnight targeted testing operation in Kwai Chung led to the detection of one preliminary COVID-19 case after more than 2,500 residents were tested, the government said Thursday.

In a statement, the government said 2,581 residents underwent compulsory testing after a restricted area was set up at Yat Kwai House, Kwai Chung Estate on Wednesday night.

The person who tested preliminarily positive will be hospitalized while a close contact will be sent to a quarantine center, it added.

The person who tested preliminarily positive will be hospitalized while a close contact will be sent to a quarantine center, the government said

The building was cordoned off after a confirmed COVID-19 case and a preliminary case were detected, the Centre for Health Protection said.

The confirmed case involved a 79-year-old man whose source of the infection remained unknown, while a Cathay Pacific outsourced worker living in the same block tested preliminarily positive. He works as a forklift driver at Cathay City. The CHP said the pair live on different floors and units. Authorities were investigating whether the two had ever met in a park outside the block.

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Government staff members also tested 3,089 residents in Kwun Tong and Sham Shuo Po, where the results of one specimen was still being verified.

The government set up a restricted area at Tower 3, Grand Central, 33 Hip Wo Street, Kwun Tong at 6:30 pm Wednesday and tested 830 residents.

Thirty minutes later, Fu Yuet House in Fu Cheong Estate, 19 Sai Chuen Road, Sham Shui Po was cordoned off and 2,259 residents also underwent testing.

The government said 155 households in Kwun Tong did not answer the door when government staff members knocked while 46 households in Sham Shui Po also did not reply.

The building in Kwun Tong was cordoned off after a 17-year-old student tested preliminarily positive for the coronavirus. The source of his infection was unknown. 

The student studies at St. Joseph's Anglo-Chinese School in the same district. He had a fever on Jan 15 and sought medical treatment two days later when his sample tested preliminarily positive and carried the Delta mutant strain.

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On the other hand, the building in Sham Shui Po was cordoned off after a 12-year-old boy tested preliminary positive.

The targeted testing operation in Kwun Tong ended at 8:30 am Thursday.