Coronavirus: gene tests to see if 51 infections on single flight from India to Hong Kong were spread on plane or in hotel quarantine
- University of Hong Kong will conduct genome sequencing on samples from 51 infected passengers of Vistara flight UK6395 from New Delhi on April 4
- Review of official data shows 22 patients, or 43 per cent, were only confirmed to have had infection during hotel quarantine on the 15th day of their arrival
The Post learned the University of Hong Kong (HKU) would be conducting genome sequencing on the 51 passengers of Vistara flight UK6395 from New Delhi on April 4, while a review of official data showed 22 of them, or around 43 per cent, were only confirmed to have had the infection during their hotel quarantine on the 15th day of their arrival.
Thirty-nine of those passengers were also asymptomatic when their infections were confirmed, figures that on Wednesday sparked calls for more frequent testing of foreign arrivals and placing those from high-risk countries in government facilities.
At least one expert questioned whether hotel transmission was partly the reason behind the large number of infected passengers from just one flight, while others queried the reliability of pre-departure Covid-19 tests and the possibility of in-flight transmission.
Hong Kong’s focus is firmly on imported cases, with the city marking its first day without a local coronavirus infection in more than two weeks.
The one imported case on Wednesday involved a 31-year-old woman who recently arrived from the Philippines and carried the N501Y mutant strain. The new infection took the total number of confirmed cases to 11,704, with 209 related deaths. Fewer than five preliminary-positive cases were reported.
In a separate development, one of two designated flights bringing residents back to Hong Kong from Britain departed on Wednesday, carrying hundreds of passengers.