Hong Kong fourth wave: quarantine, mandatory testing orders issued as housing block cluster grows, city registers 82 new coronavirus cases
- Government sends some residents at Kwai Tung House into quarantine and puts mandatory testing in place
- Almost half of 77 local cases untraceable, as officials identify possible outbreak among domestic workers
Thirty-seven of the new cases were untraceable, accounting for almost half of the 77 local infections, and health officials identified a possible outbreak in a boarding house for domestic helpers in Tai Po.
Experts believed an outbreak emerged between three number 15 flats in Kwai Tung House, in Tung Tau Estate. Infections from three other flats in the Wong Tai Sin block were thought to be linked to other transmissions in the community. So far nine residents have been infected.
Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, an infectious diseases expert from the University of Hong Kong, who advises the government on its Covid-19 response, said it was likely the virus had spread from unit 15 on the 23rd floor to the unit facing the same direction on the floor above.
“There were four patients in Flat 2315. The viral load in the air of that flat was very high,” Yuen said after an inspection of the block with health and environment officers on Monday. “When they turned on the exhaust fan in the bathroom, the air [with virus] would rise as it was warm.”
He said the kitchen window of the flat above, near the bathroom window of the flat below, was opened during cooking. The kitchen’s exhaust hood was also turned on.