Hong Kong records lowest Covid-19 caseload in nearly a month at 33, as doctor suggests hospital cluster may be traced to failure to wear masks properly
- Breakout at Kwong Wah Hospital may be result of uncooperative patient who ‘often removed his mask’, according to infectious disease expert
- Four more patients – aged 75 to 87 – die across city, bringing death toll to 58
The news came as a top infectious disease expert said he believed a cluster of infections in Kwong Wah Hospital in Yau Ma Tei, involving six patients, began when one of them failed to wear a mask properly.
Among the new cases, of which there were fewer than 100 for the ninth day in a row, all but one were locally transmitted, including 15 without a known source. The imported case involved a seafarer from India.
“I think there’s [a bit of] an overall decreasing trend, but the daily numbers may fluctuate,” Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection, said at the daily Covid-19 press conference.
“I hope the trend will continue, with all the effort from the community as well as from the government, but there are still a lot of unknown cases in the city.”
Among the new cases was a 40-year-old foreign domestic worker. The Indonesian national helped take care of an elderly woman in Shau Kei Wan from July 16 to 23, and stayed in a dormitory in Cheung Hing Mansion in Mong Kok with about 10 other helpers between July 23 and August 3.
When we remove our mask and speak loudly, many tiny droplets are produced. If a patient is a carrier of the virus, those droplets pass the virus to other patients
She recently began working for a new employer and tended to two elderly people living at the Chung Yuen Building in Tai Kok Tsui. After feeling unwell, she was tested and stayed at the Chung Kin Building while awaiting her results.
