Coronavirus: suspected local infection could break Hong Kong’s 57-day run of zero cases in community
- Man, 43, with no recent travel history tests preliminary-positive, Centre for Health Protection says
- Hong Kong’s rules revamp is ‘not going to fundamentally change the picture’ for resuming quarantine-free travel over border, Guangdong official says
The Centre for Health Protection on Tuesday evening said the preliminary-positive case involved a 43-year-old man who had no recent travel history.
According to a medical source, the patient lives in Sham Shui Po and has a low viral load.
The development came just one day after Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor hailed the lengthy streak without local cases while announcing a revamp of pandemic-control rules for travellers and said the city had “basically achieved the goal of zero infections in the community”.
The case could also affect any chance of the border with mainland China reopening soon.
A Guangdong province official told the Post earlier on Tuesday that Hong Kong’s overhaul of its travel rules and tighter vaccination requirements for certain groups would not speed up the resumption of quarantine-free travel across the border.