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Hong Kong is preparing to relax some of its social-distancing measures. Photo: Dickson Lee

Coronavirus: Hong Kong records eight imported cases of Covid-19, breaking three-day run of no new infections

  • City’s tally rises to 1,063 after group of people who recently returned from Pakistan test positive
  • News comes ahead of further relaxation of some social-distancing measures

Hong Kong recorded eight imported cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, with seven of the infected people returning on the same flight from Pakistan, according to health authorities.

But officials were quick to urge the public to avoid jumping to conclusions about any in-flight transmission, as the city prepared to further relax some social-distancing measures.

The cases are the highest daily number in more than a month and take Hong Kong’s total to 1,063. They break a three-day run of zero infections. It has been a week since the last locally transmitted cases were recorded.

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Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch at the Centre for Health Protection, said all the latest cases involved people returning from Pakistan, with three family clusters. Seven of them returned on the same Qatar Airways Flight 818 on Wednesday.

A 56-year-old father and his two sons, 14 and 22, were among those who tested positive. The father initially displayed no symptoms but developed a cough after he was transferred to the quarantine facility at Chun Yeung Estate in Fo Tan.

Also on the same flight were an 11-year-old girl and her mother, 31, and aunt, 37. Another passenger, a 23-year-old man, also tested positive.

Chairs are spaced apart to ensure social distancing at CMA Secondary School. Photo: Bloomberg

“They were not exactly sitting next to each other,” Chuang said. “But some of them were sitting quite close to each other within a few rows because they are family members.”

When asked whether in-flight transmission might have occurred, she said it was too early to assess the risk, unless others unrelated to the families also tested positive after having sat close to them.

“But according to experience over the past few months, this phenomenon has not occurred,” Chuang said, speculating that passengers wearing masks on the flight might have helped.

A 73-year-old woman, the sole newly infected person not on the flight, was quarantined at Chun Yeung Estate after her deep throat saliva sample tested positive. Her grandchild and daughter-in-law were diagnosed earlier. She has been transferred to Tuen Mun Hospital.

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Chuang said 845 bottles for providing samples had been distributed to airport workers since last Friday, with 602 returned, all of which tested negative.

Hong Kong had been free from locally transmitted Covid-19 cases from April 19 until last week, when a couple and their granddaughter tested positive for the coronavirus.

As the grip of the pandemic eases, the government has been reopening public leisure facilities starting on Thursday, including swimming pools. Fifteen beaches will be open to the public on Saturday, while gyms, barbecue sites and campsites will gradually follow suit.

The government will on Friday allow gatherings for religious events, exempting them from the current rule that bans groups of more than eight people.

Pedestrians wearing masks in Hong Kong during the Covid-19 pandemic. Photo: EPA-EFE

More than 2,000 senior secondary school students living in mainland China are expected to be among the first batch of pupils returning to school in Hong Kong without the need to undergo quarantine, the education authority announced, without giving a time frame.

Meanwhile, Dr Linda Yu Wai-ling, the Hospital Authority’s chief manager for clinical effectiveness and technology management, revealed 18 children with Kawasaki disease had been tested at the University of Hong Kong. None had Covid-19 neutralising antibodies in their serum, meaning they had not been infected with the coronavirus.

The tests came after medical experts in Hong Kong and around the world raised concerns over the rare inflammatory syndrome affecting children and teenagers that might be linked to Covid-19.

Children have not been seen as a high-risk group for the disease as they generally displayed milder symptoms than adults and are not thought to be major transmitters of the disease, according to the World Health Organisation.

But the global body warned last Friday there was “an urgent need” to gather more data to better understand the syndrome – the symptoms of which include fever, rash and signs of inflammation on the hands, mouth or feet; hypotension or shock; gastrointestinal problems; and abnormalities in the heart or blood vessels.

Previous reports in countries such as Italy, Britain and the United States showed a sharp increase in the number of patients with Kawasaki disease, with some testing positive for Covid-19 antibodies.

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This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Seven of eight new imported cases on same flight
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