Hong Kong to step up Covid-19 surveillance and may make all air travellers remain in specific locations until coronavirus test results known
- From Monday, travellers arriving at the airport will have to submit another deep-throat saliva sample before they complete their 14-day quarantine
- One of two new cases involves a four-year-old girl who recently returned from Britain with her mother, earlier confirmed with the infection
Hong Kong health authorities will step up Covid-19 surveillance and are considering making all air travellers remain in specific locations until their coronavirus test results are known, despite the city recording just two new cases on Saturday, a single-digit increase for the seventh day in a row.
With the city’s total infection tally at 1,023, health officials are now planning from Monday to give an extra specimen bottle to air travellers to submit another deep-throat saliva sample before they complete their 14-day quarantine, if they do not develop symptoms during the period.
“We hope to collect some information and see whether the positive rate is high, and who is at higher risk,” said Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection.
Those who collected an extra bottle would need to take another sample by themselves on a designated date before their quarantine period ended.
They would have to hand in their specimens, either through family or friends, or by a door-to-door service, to a collection point on the same morning.
Chuang said six patients who were confirmed with the virus after they completed their quarantine period had not collected a sample bottle for a virus test on arrival because there was no such requirement at the time, meaning they had not been tested previously.
She urged those under home quarantine to seek medical help as soon as possible if they felt unwell.