Covid-19: Hong Kong logs 20 new cases and officials hint at possibly reopening border if enough residents get vaccinated
- Health secretary says mass immunisation will help the city bring back cross-border travel and kick-start its economic recovery
- Daily numbers rise for third day in a row but health boss says it’s too early to say if there has been a rebound after Lunar New Year
The rising caseloads, from a low of eight cases on Thursday, followed a warning by top epidemiologist Professor Gabriel Leung, who said the reproductive rate of the virus – the number of people an infected person could pass Covid-19 on to – had risen for four consecutive days to 0.67.
All but one of Sunday’s cases were locally transmitted, with six of them untraceable. This took the overall local tally to 10,868, of whom 197 have died. More than 10 people tested preliminary-positive for the virus.
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Coronavirus Hong Kong: first Covid-19 vaccines land in city
Four of the local cases related to the infection cluster at Caritas Lok Yi School, a special needs institution that has a total of five infections so far. The latest patients involved a student, a staff member, and two family members of students.