Hong Kong confirms 12th case of deadly coronavirus

Hong Kong confirmed its 11th and 12th cases of the deadly Wuhan coronavirus early on Friday as hospital chiefs revealed about 87 per cent of suspected cases reported in the city were locals.

The city has received 680 reports of cases fitting the reporting criteria, including those officially confirmed.

The newest confirmed patient was a 75-year-old man living in Hong Mei House, Cheung Hong Estate in Tsing Yi, according to the city’s government.

He developed a cough and shortness of breath on January 22, and was admitted to Princess Margaret Hospital two days later, where he now is in a stable condition, and being being treated in isolation.

His wife, daughter and son did not have symptoms, but were being quarantined in Lady MacLehose Holiday Village, authorities said.

The man had visited Shunde in Guangdong Province from December 30 to January 7, and took day trips to Macau from January 10 to 14.

On Thursday, sources told the South China Morning Post that the 11th confirmed case was the daughter of an elderly couple who had themselves been confirmed to be infected a day earlier.

The woman was understood to work for securities brokerage Haitong International. According to a memo issued by the company and seen by the Post, there was no risk to other employees. The woman had not returned to the office, it said, since January 22, when she met visiting relatives who flew to the city on Cathay Dragon flight KA853.

On that flight were the elderly couple, from Wuhan, the city in mainland China’s Hubei province where the outbreak began.

They stayed in the W Hotel Hong Kong, near the high-speed rail terminal in West Kowloon. They had also been to the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong and Four Seasons Hotel Hong Kong.

Dr Chung Kin-lai, the Hospital Authority’s director for quality and safety, disclosed to the Legislative Council’s special health panel on Thursday that about 13 per cent of the first 570 reported cases were “non-eligible people”, meaning they were not Hong Kong identity card holders.

Under the current reporting system, anyone who has a fever, acute respiratory illness or symptoms of pneumonia and has been to Hubei province, a mainland Chinese hospital or in touch with a patient infected with the virus, will be considered a suspected case. Such patients are sent for isolation in a public hospital.

Concerns had been raised over whether people from mainland China, rushing to receive treatment at Hong Kong’s public hospitals, would overburden the health care system.

Seven of the 12 confirmed cases are Wuhan residents. A Shenzhen resident and three Hong Kong ID card holders make up the other four, all of whom had been in Hubei recently, as well as the newly confirmed 75-year-old, whose status in Hong Kong has yet to be confirmed by the Post.

Hong Kong hotels under pressure to block mainland visitors over coronavirus fears

It was not clear late on Thursday whether the 11th patient – who was being treated at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Jordan – had been transferred to Princess Margaret Hospital in Kwai Chung, where all the others were being handled.

The number of people arriving from mainland China had dipped since Monday, when the government banned Hubei residents, or those who had visited the province in the previous 14 days, from entering the city.

Official figures from the Immigration Department showed the number of mainland Chinese visitors entering the city was down from 36,690 on Sunday to 28,780 on Monday, 24,156 on Tuesday and 27,780 on Wednesday.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Communicable Disease Branch at the Centre for Health Protection, said on Thursday that the two suspected cases at Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital in Tai Po, first reported by the media as preliminary positive, eventually got the all-clear.

“The first two cases did not show clear negative results in the first tests, and results for their second test were negative,” Chuang said, adding that a third test conducted on Thursday also came back negative.

Regarding the elderly Wuhan couple confirmed as infected on Wednesday, Chuang revealed that, before their diagnosis, the health department offered advice to the hotel the pair were staying at, after they reported feeling unwell.

“We did advise [the couple] to see doctors, but we cannot force them to do so,” she said, adding that it was up to a doctor to report to the authorities whether a patient is considered a suspected case.

While Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor mentioned on Tuesday that home quarantine would be the last resort if there were not enough facilities to isolate a large group of people, medical experts said that would only be suitable for people who had returned from mainland provinces other than Hubei.

Professor David Hui Shu-cheong, a respiratory medicine expert from Chinese University, cited the South Korean experience of battling Middle East respiratory syndrome, when security guards, CCTV and police were used to monitor whether patients complied with home isolation orders.

IT sector lawmaker Charles Mok said authorities could ask returning citizens to file regular reports on their health conditions via a GPS-equipped mobile device, and list the penalties for breaking the rules.

“Technology can supplement a compulsory home confinement scheme and ensure public confidence that the scheme is effective in a majority of cases,” he said.

Federation of Trade Unions lawmaker Alice Mak Mei-kuen said the government should state under what circumstances residents should undergo home surveillance. She also urged employers not to count periods of home confinement towards employees’ annual leave.

Meanwhile, more than 500 doctors, nurses and health care professionals threatened to strike, after writing letters to officials demanding immediate action to close the city’s borders with the mainland.

The workers also complained of a “dangerous working environment”, which they said was putting the lives of staff and patients at risk.

Additional reporting by Sum Lok-kei, Kimmy Chung and James Wilkinson