Coronavirus: outbreak in China’s Guangdong province prompts top-level meeting but Hong Kong infectious disease experts do not expect border reopening efforts to be hit

Nine cases have now been linked to a cluster in Guangzhou’s Liwan district

Professor David Hui, a Hong Kong government pandemic adviser, says the outbreak is ‘not too worrying’, with no evidence of cases spiralling

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A medical worker collects swab samples in Guangzhou’s Liwan district. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 11:09pm, 27 May 2021Updated: 1:04am, 28 May 2021

A worsening Covid-19 outbreak in neighbouring Guangdong province has prompted an urgent top-level meeting by Communist Party officials, but Hong Kong infectious disease experts do not expect the situation to derail the city’s efforts to reopen the border.

Guangdong party secretary Li Xi chaired a meeting of the province’s standing committee and a Covid-19 leadership group on Wednesday to discuss the local virus situation and “plan the next steps” in containing the outbreak, the Southern Daily newspaper reported.

Guangdong had four new infections on Thursday, two in the provincial capital Guangzhou and two in Shenzhen.

Residents wait for testing in the Liwan district of Guangzhou. Photo: Xinhua

Nine cases have been linked to a cluster in Guangzhou’s Liwan district, which originated last Friday when a woman, 75, surnamed Guo was confirmed infected with the variant first seen in India.

The source of the cluster remained unclear, but her husband was also confirmed with Covid-19, as was a 74-year-old woman surnamed Song who recently dined with Guo in a Chinese restaurant. Two of Song’s family members were also infected.