Coronavirus: Hong Kong ‘actively considering’ scrapping hotel quarantine, health chief says, but calls for cautious attitude towards case numbers
- Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau says opening up is ‘right direction’ for city, but warns recent festive holiday could mean fewer people got tested
- Civil service chief Ingrid Yeung and home affairs minister Alice Mak join outreach programme to promote vaccine uptake among elderly
Secretary for Health Lo Chung-mau told a radio programme on Saturday that recent infection figures and sewage samples showed encouraging signs, but also warned that a previous long weekend might mean fewer people got tested, while there was a higher risk of transmission from family gatherings.
“The figures for the past week seem to have reached a trend indicating a plateau, but there was also the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday,” Lo said, adding that combined factors might still lead to fluctuations, and more scrutiny of the figures was needed.
Despite the coronavirus transmission rate in Hong Kong falling to below one for the first time in a month, the number of daily infections has hovered around the 8,000 mark for three days, with the city logging 8,278 cases on Saturday, 129 of which were imported.
Sixteen more deaths were also recorded, bringing the total number of related fatalities up to 9,868, while the overall infection tally stands at 1,700,173.
Dr Albert Au Ka-wing, of the Centre for Health Protection, said there was no “obvious surge” in the number of cases over the past week since the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday last Saturday.
“We need to observe for a few more days or perhaps a week to see if the pandemic has plateaued, or even eased. But we don’t have a clear picture at the moment,” he said.