A journalist takes photos of beds at the AsiaWorld-Expo in Hong Kong on Nov 24, 2020. (PARKER ZHENG/CHINA DAILY)
HONG KONG – Hong Kong has set aside up to 5,000 hospital beds for COVID-19 patients as the city recorded 6,654 new cases on Tuesday.
Larry Lee Lap-yip, chief manager (Integrated Clinical Services) of the Hospital Authority, said in a press briefing that the HA decided to activate “Stage 3” of its hospital beds redeployment plan as the number of admitted COVID patients continued to rise.
Ten elderly COVID patients also passed away, bringing the city’s toll during the fifth wave of infections to 9,407.
Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection, said that the new cases included 6,410 local infections and 244 imported cases
“As the pandemic remains serious, there are now over 2,600 patients in hospitals and there are more and more who need to be hospitalized,” Lee said, noting that non-emergency hospital services will be affected since their staff members will also have to be redeployed.
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“If the epidemic becomes worse, the community as a whole will have to pay a high price..Many hospitals have reduced non-emergency surgical procedures and other day treatments and we will have to further cut down on other non-emergency services soon,” he added.
Lee said the redeployed beds include 4,000 beds in public hospitals, 800 in the North Lantau Hospital Hong Kong Infection Control Center, and 200 at the AsiaWorld-Expo community treatment facility. Another 500 beds at Halls 8 and 10 of the AWE facility will be held “in reserve”.
Lee said the 10 patients who died included six men and four women aged 69 to 105 years old. Only two of them had the required three vaccine jabs.
He also said that the HA detected two hospital clusters with a total of nine infections.
At Tung Wah Hospital, a male patient in the medicine ward tested positive for the virus on Aug 19. Further tests showed that three staff members were also infected.
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“They wore personal protective equipment so we will try to see if these cases are linked,” Lee said. The other cluster was detected at Tai Po Hospital, where an 85-year-old patient was confirmed infected on Aug 21. Three more patients, aged 59 to 95 years old, and a staff member later tested positive.
Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection, said in the same briefing that the new cases included 6,410 local infections and 244 imported cases.
Among the imported, 125 were detected at the airport. Thirty-two came from the United States, 27 from India, 20 from Thailand, 18 each from the Philippines and the United Kingdom, 15 each from Canada and Singapore, and 11 from South Korea.
Chuang said five residential care homes for the elderly had new cases while 81 schools reported 108 students and 33 staff members getting infected. Five schools had to suspend some in-person classes for one week.
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She also said that the Omicron subvariants BA.4 or BA.5 accounted for 37.1 percent of the new cases while 9 percent were linked to BA.2.12.1.
Meanwhile, Commissioner of Police Siu Chak-yee tested positive for COVID-19 through a rapid antigen test and is undergoing isolation in accordance with CHP guidelines, a police spokesman said in a statement.
Siu last went to work on Aug 22 and had followed social distancing measures, including taking a rapid antigen test daily and wearing a face mask. He has no recent travel history, the spokesman said.