Hong Kong fourth wave: government orders thousands of construction workers at airport to be screened as Covid-19 cluster grows; another 28 cases logged
- Officials say 3,000 workers must be screened after discovery of five new cases take cluster size to nine
- Minister promises no more delays to Pfizer-BioNTech jabs, as city’s first inoculation programme slated to begin end of next month
While the caseload was the lowest in more than three weeks, the fourth wave has proved stubbornly difficult to contain, and authorities are hoping the roll-out of a vaccine will help turn the tide. The government announced the launch of a recruitment and infrastructure drive for the campaign, which is expected to start late next month.
Two of the latest infections were imported, one involving a cargo flight pilot coming from the United States and the other an arrival from Pakistan, who flew from Dubai to Bangkok. Six of the cases were untraceable, while more than 40 people tested preliminary-positive. The city’s overall tally now stands at 10,399, with 179 related deaths after a 46-year-old female patient succumbed in the evening.
Although the latest infections were the fewest since January 6, when 25 cases emerged, the Centre for Health Protection said it could not evaluate a longer-term trend based on a single day.
“Also, as the Chinese Lunar New Year is approaching, the general public may have more family gatherings and also social functions, so we need to take precautions so there will not be further large-scale transmission or outbreaks in the community,” said Dr Albert Au Ka-wing, principal medical and health officer at the centre’s communicable disease branch.
Five more construction workers at the airport were found to be carrying the virus, taking the size of the cluster to nine, with the first case emerging last week.
They worked at two different sites, and transmission was suspected to have occurred in a converted shipping container used to rest and eat, according to Au.