Coronavirus: Hong Kong on 40-day streak of no untraceable cases after policeman’s false positive down to possible contamination
- Officer’s positive test result had been taken as evidence of untraceable cases in community
- Arrangements being made for close contacts, including 30 colleagues, to be allowed to leave government quarantine camp
Hong Kong marked 40 straight days without a single untraceable case of Covid-19 locally after a policeman whose reported infection snapped the long streak the previous day turned out to be officially coronavirus-free on Wednesday.
The mistaken diagnosis was blamed on confusion caused by suspected contamination of a sample taken from the officer at a clinic – the sample had tested positive multiple times, but he returned a negative result each time he was subsequently tested again in hospital.
An expert involved in the investigation urged clinics to ensure a clear division of labour for processes such as the handling of used vaccine bottles and specimen collection kits, to reduce the number of such incidents.
Health authorities on Wednesday confirmed just one imported Covid-19 case, involving a 58-year-old man who arrived from the United Arab Emirates. The city’s overall tally stood at 11,848, with 210 related deaths.
The Centre for Health Protection said genetic analyses by its own laboratory as well as the University of Hong Kong’s department of microbiology confirmed the 35-year-old officer, who was attached to the patrol subunit of the force’s Wan Chai division, carried a virus that was “compatible” with a vaccine strain.
“After examining the clinical, epidemiological and laboratory findings, the case is compatible with vaccine strain contamination and hence will not be classified as a case of Covid-19 infection,” a statement from the centre read.
