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Coronavirus: South African variant confirmed as Hong Kong’s first local case of mutated strain, transmission linked to hotel door hooks used for meal deliveries
- Transmission of virus likely to have taken place at quarantine hotel via door hooks used by staff to deliver meal boxes to guests, probe finds
- Local health authorities also confirm eight new coronavirus cases, including two people who recently arrived from mainland China
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Hong Kong’s first community infection of a mutant Covid-19 strain involved the South African variant, officials revealed on Tuesday, with transmission likely to have taken place at a quarantine hotel via door hooks used by staff to deliver meal boxes to guests.
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Local health authorities also confirmed eight new coronavirus cases on Tuesday, including two people who recently arrived from mainland China.
One of them, a woman who was isolating at home in a subdivided flat shared with as many as 20 people, tested positive despite previously having received two Covid-19 jabs on the mainland.
The other patient entered the city under a quarantine-free scheme allowing Hongkongers in Guangdong province and Macau with a negative test result to return, potentially raising questions about the government’s plan to expand the programme to cover the whole of the country.
Of Tuesday’s three imported cases, two were recent arrivals from India, including a patient who travelled on an April 4 flight where 53 passengers so far have been confirmed as infected.
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