Five senior Hospital Authority staff were at a meeting earlier this month attended by two engineers diagnosed with the coronavirus, it emerged on Monday. The revelation came as a 69-year-old man was confirmed as infected, along with a colleague and the wife of a Hong Kong engineer, bringing the number of cases in the city to 60. The two engineers from architecture firm P&T Group, aged 54 and 45, attended a development project meeting at the Hospital Authority’s headquarters on February 6 and 7, which was the last time the co-workers were together. Five authority representatives were also present. The meeting on February 6 was attended by 15 people. Also present were representatives from quantity surveyors Rider Levett Bucknall Limited, planning and development consultant KJL Limited, and engineering firm WSP. Cathay flights chartered to bring home Hongkongers stuck on cruise All five from the Hospital Authority were under medical surveillance but not in quarantine or isolation, its chief manager Dr Lau Ka-hin said. “Both were brief meetings for about 15 to 20 minutes. But all Hospital Authority staff who attended wore face masks,” Lau said. He denied any cover-up for not disclosing earlier, claiming the meetings took place before the engineers developed any symptoms of the disease. Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, of the Centre for Health Protection, said the meeting took place before the relevant incubation period for the first engineer, so none of the attendees were classified as being close contacts of an infected person. Two arrested after armed gang makes run for toilet rolls in HK$1,700 heist An internal memo to Hospital Authority staff who work at its headquarters in Argyle Street, Kowloon, said public areas had been disinfected, while workers had been encouraged to hold meetings via video link and to avoid face-to-face contact. “Where face-to-face interaction is necessary, meeting participants should wear surgical masks and keep a distance (for example, two metres) from each other for infection control,” the memo read. Meanwhile, authorities were still tracing the source of the 54-year-old engineer’s infection, amid suspicions it could be a case of local transmission. His wife also tested positive in a preliminary examination on Monday, sources said. His 45-year-old colleague has tested positive twice for the virus. The older engineer, who had not recently travelled outside the city, has suffered from a fever since February 7, and sought help from a private clinic in Sham Shui Po four times before finally being hospitalised on Sunday. He was referred to the Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan twice, but was only admitted on February 15 after earlier lung scans showed no abnormalities. Hong Kong couple hospitalised after man tests positive for coronavirus Before being taken to hospital, he attended a church gathering in Shau Kei Wan with his wife, who later visited a private clinic in Taikoo Shing when falling ill. The 20 or 30 who attended the church service were being tracked down. The younger engineer had sought treatment at a private clinic in Tsz Wan Shan, according to the Hospital Authority. The 45-year-old reportedly developed a fever on February 13 and was then admitted to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei on Sunday. The case has raised questions over whether additional measures should be introduced for people who show only minor symptoms to prevent further transmission locally. Currently, doctors are required to report to health authorities any patients with fever, respiratory infections, or pneumonia if they have been to Hubei province, any mainland hospitals or have come into direct contact with any confirmed coronavirus patient in the previous 14 days. They undergo a genome test to confirm if they have been infected with the deadly virus. The test is also conducted on all in-patients with pneumonia in public hospitals. But the 54-year-old engineer only had a fever when he was first sent to hospital. Li Ka Shing Foundation to donate masks, safety gear to fight coronavirus Dr Leung Chi-chiu, chairman of the Hong Kong Medical Association’s Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases, said while it was difficult to widen the reporting or genome testing criteria, since only 700 to 800 such tests could be done a day, blood tests for patients with persistent minor symptoms like fever to look at whether they had the antibody specific to the virus could be an effective additional measure. “The type of IGM antibody will usually appear in a patient’s blood after one week of virus infection. If the antibody is tested to be specific to the virus, one can conclude the patient has contracted Covid-19. “It just takes a drop of blood and results can be seen in just 15 minutes. It is also a point-of-care test which can be administered at a clinic when a patient goes to see a private practitioner, so he or she will know the result immediately and doesn’t need to be sent back to the community to wait.” He said it was also a safer way of detection for medical professionals, as it did not require nasal swab or samples from a patient’s throat which might be full of virus. What you need to know and how to protect yourself against the Covid-19 disease The diagnostic kit is being produced in various pharmaceutical industries on the mainland. At a press briefing on Monday, Dr Lau Ka-hin of the Hospital Authority said the government’s reporting and genome testing criteria was being reviewed. He did not rule out additional measures to detect subclinical patients in the community. “We are reviewing the criteria every day because the infection is moving … I can promise this is a continuous work ... to see how we can pick up or detect patients with the coronavirus infection earlier,” he said. P&T Group has asked all staff to work from home until February 23, telling them their office in 633 King’s Road, in North Point, will be sterilised. The retired man from Tseung Kwan O, who has a long term illness, was officially recorded as the city’s 58th Covid-19 case on Monday despite having no recent travel history.