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Coronavirus: breakthrough in Hong Kong’s fight against mutated strains as officials establish transmission link among five cases
- Development may ease worries over community spread of more infectious Covid-19 variants, but uncertainties remain over threat level going forward
- Contact-tracing results show connections between those infected, who include carriers of the N501Y strain that has authorities particularly worried
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Hong Kong health authorities have established a transmission link among five people with a mutated strain of Covid-19 in a breakthrough that may ease concerns about the community spread of more infectious variants, but uncertainties remain over how much of a continuing risk the city is facing.
Extensive contact-tracing results on Wednesday showed that three variant cases involving foreign domestic helpers – the latest two at the Kornhill and Royalton private housing estates in Quarry Bay and Pok Fu Lam, alongside an earlier case at the Caribbean Coast in Tung Chung – had partied together with a woman from the Philippines working in a clinic and her brother in Sham Shui Po, according to a source.
The situation seems less worrying, but we cannot be too careful as the chain of infection may not end yet
The woman and an engineer from Dubai, whom she was friends with, earlier became the first two cases of variant infections discovered locally.
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The source said on Wednesday that the pair had been uncooperative all along in providing details of their movements and whereabouts.
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It also emerged that the woman had paid a visit to her mother’s home at a public housing estate in Chai Wan, and both the mother and brother had been sent to hospital to wait for test results.
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