Coronavirus: Hong Kong’s daily cases continue to fall as expert suggests latest surge may have peaked, others disagree
- Chief executive and other experts remain cautious saying effects from increased social mixing and decreased testing would take time to emerge
- An expert says that other indicators, such as reproductive rate of virus, have also shown a downward trend
Hong Kong’s daily coronavirus caseloads have continued to fall, even as families gathered to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival over the long weekend, while a health expert has suggested the latest surge in Covid-19 infections may have peaked.
But city leader John Lee Ka-chiu and several other experts remained cautious on Tuesday, arguing Hong Kong was still in a “critical week” as the consequences of greater social mixing and decreased testing over the holiday would take time to emerge.
Lee said the government could not “turn a blind eye” to two facts: hospitals had already cut 30 per cent of services to deal with Covid-19 infections and high-risk groups continued to be at risk because their vaccination rate was unsatisfactory.
“People should not just think that Covid is a normal flu, because if you look at our figures we have lost 9,000 lives just because of Omicron when every year we lost about 300 lives because of flu,” he said.
On Tuesday, health officials reported 7,218 coronavirus infections, including 151 imported ones, and 10 more related deaths, taking the city’s overall tally to 1,667,130, with 9,820 related fatalities.