Hong Kong third wave: officials ‘very worried’ as city struggles to control Covid-19 outbreak, logs new daily record with 133 cases
- Centre for Health Protection’s Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan says next one to two weeks will be key in determining if social-distancing measures are working
- Carrie Lam, meanwhile, says she has sought Beijing’s help in controlling outbreak, but will institute a lockdown only if ‘absolutely essential’
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Hong Kong battles third wave of coronavirus infections
The government figures marked the fourth straight day the city had topped the previous day’s tally, and two more coronavirus patients were revealed to have died.
“We are seeing a very high number of cases daily and the trend is still increasing,” said Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection. “We are very worried about whether this situation can be controlled actually.”
Among Saturday’s new cases, 126 were locally transmitted, including 55 whose source of infection remained unknown. More than 100 people also tested preliminarily positive and were awaiting confirmation.
The latest additions brought the city’s tally to 2,505, with 18 related deaths.
Chuang said authorities would need to observe the situation closely over the next one to two weeks to see if recently implemented social-distancing measures would begin to curb transmission.