Coronavirus: eight more households evacuated from Hong Kong housing block after three earlier infections in building
- Total of 17 households from a block in Tai Po’s Fu Heng Estate have been evacuated and taken to quarantine centres
- City confirmed seven more Covid-19 cases on Sunday, bringing total to 148
Eight more households were evacuated overnight from a Hong Kong public housing block where three coronavirus patients lived, health officials said on Sunday as the city confirmed seven Covid-19 cases, bringing the total to 148.
At least 43 people have been evacuated from Heng Tai House at Fu Heng Estate in Tai Po since the operation started on Saturday night, soon after a 59-year-old man was revealed as the third infection in the block.
Health authorities originally planned to evacuate 10 households from flats numbered 13 and 14 across the 29th to 34th floors of the block on Saturday night, but one family could not be reached, the Centre for Health Protection’s Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan said.
She said authorities had later evacuated eight more households who lived on floors below the latest patient in the block, taking the total number of evacuated households there to 17, as of Sunday night.
The emptying of the flats was to allow officials to determine whether the vent pipes were linked to the spread of the disease after at least one home in the building was found with improperly sealed piping.