A passenger wearing protective gear as a precautionary measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus pushes his trolley after arriving at the Hong Kong International Airport on March 19, 2020. (ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP)
HONG KONG – Amid an increase in the number of inbound travelers, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government has enhanced anti-epidemic coach services to transport those testing positive for COVID-19 at the Hong Kong International Airport to a designated community isolation facility (CIF) starting Thursday noon.
Under the new arrangement, anti-epidemic vehicles will pick up travelers testing positive for the virus at the airport every 30 minutes from 6 am to 1 am and every hour from 1 am to 6 am daily, a government spokesperson said in response to media inquiries.
To comply with the government's quarantine arrangements, the Fire Services Department (FSD) has been arranging anti-epidemic coaches with over 20 seats to provide transport services at fixed locations and times for inbound persons who have tested positive for the virus at the HKIA to a CIF since March 30. The coaches operated every three hours from 9 am to 0.00 am.
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Outside these hours, the government also arranged other anti-epidemic vehicles to transport such travelers to a CIF, the spokesperson said in a statement.
The FSD arranged such special transport for three inbound persons testing positive for COVID-19 from the HKIA to a designated CIF around 4 am Thursday morning, according to the statement.
From Aug 1 to 16, the FSD anti-epidemic coaches transported around 10 to 50 such inbound persons from HKIA to a designated CIF each day, the statement adds.
Vaccination update
The Department of Health (DH) received 17 reports of adverse effects following COVID-19 immunization in the preceding week Aug 14. No death cases were reported by the Hospital Authority (HA) involving individuals who had received vaccines within 14 days before they passed away and had potential association with vaccination, it added.
As compared to the Hong Kong overall population, those who have received three doses of vaccine account for a much lower proportion among reported cases, and an extremely low proportion among the hospitalized critical/serious and deceased cases.
Spokesperson, HKSAR Government
As of Aug 14, around 18.29 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered to the residents. Around 6.78 million people, accounting for 94.2 percent of the population aged 12 or above, received at least one dose of the vaccines.
The DH said in a statement it received total 7,850 reports of adverse events. None of the deaths cases involving vaccinated people, including 119 cases with vaccination within 14 days before they passed away, were associated with vaccination, it said.
The Expert Committee on Clinical Events Assessment Following COVID-19 Immunisation had concluded that 97 of the deaths had no causal relationship with vaccination, while for one case the causal relationship with vaccination could not be established, and preliminarily considered that 11 cases were not associated with vaccination. Ten cases are still pending further information for assessment.
"According to preliminary data analysis, out of the cases reported in the fifth wave, over 95 percent of the fatal cases are elderly people aged 60 or above, with the proportion of death and hospitalized cases being the highest in those aged 80 or above,” said a government spokesperson, adding that most of the deceased cases are unvaccinated persons.
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Data demonstrate the effectiveness of three doses of vaccine in preventing infection, serious illness and fatality from COVID-19, the spokesperson said.
“We call on parents to arrange vaccination for their children as early as possible, thus enabling them to have early protection in the face of the threat posed by the highly transmissible mutant virus strains,” the spokesperson, reminding people who recovered after COVID-19 infection to also get vaccinated in a timely manner.