People cross a street in Hong Kong on March 11, 2022. (DALE DE LA REY / AFP)

HONG KONG - Hong Kong reported 29,381 new COVID-19 cases on Friday as the city's daily infection count fell for the third consecutive day.

Albert Au Ka-wing, principal medical and health officer of the Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch, said in a press conference that the new cases comprised four imported infections and 29,377 local cases.

READ MORE: HK plans to build more isolation units

Albert Au Ka-wing, principal medical and health officer of the Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch, said the new cases comprised four imported infections and 29,377 local cases

He said 10,493 cases were detected through rapid antigen tests while 18,888 cases were confirmed by PCR tests.

When asked by reporters whether the local COVID-19 situation is stabilizing, Au noted that the local situation is still severe with daily cases of around 30,000 to 50,000 over the past week.

"We need to observe the situation for another one or two weeks to see if there is a downward trend," Au said, adding that there are still many chains of transmission in the community.

A total of 634,169 positive cases have been detected during the current fifth wave of coronavirus infections, he added.

READ MORE: Virus: Campaign launched to help residents isolating at home

Sara Ho Yuen-ha, Hospital Authority chief manager (patient safety and risk management), said in the same briefing that 196 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 and aged between 24 and 107 died in the last 24 hours. 

Among them, 148 had no vaccination record and 113 lived in residential care homes.

Due to lagging in statistics, 96 deaths between Feb 28 and March 9 have not been reported earlier, said Ho.

The death toll in the fifth wave has risen to 3,231, representing a death rate of 0.51 percent.