Police officers patrol outside the main polling station for the 2022 Chief Executive Election at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in Wan Chai, May 8, 2022. (EDMOND TANG / CHINA DAILY)
HONG KONG – Hong Kong reported 1,276 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday as health authorities confirmed that 22 police officers have been infected in a recent outbreak.
Albert Au Ka-wing, principal medical and health officer of the Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch, said in a news briefing that the new cases included 1,160 local infections and 116 imported cases.
Albert Au Ka-wing, principal medical and health officer of the Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch, said in a news briefing that the new cases included 1,160 local infections and 116 imported cases
The local infections included 436 cases confirmed by nucleic acid testing and 724 by RAT tests.
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Au also confirmed that 22 officers from a police operational department have tested positive for COVID-19. They developed symptoms from June 12 to June 16.
“All of the around 130 to 140 close contacts have tested negative on RAT, while the nucleic acid test results of all but two of them were also negative. The results of the remaining two were pending,” Au said. "They have been arranged to undergo quarantine."
He added that the police have disinfected the vehicles and areas used by those infected.
Au also said most of the recent infections involved younger people, unlike during the peak of the fifth wave when a majority of patients were the elderly.
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"Fifty-four percent of the cases reported over the past week involved people aged 20 to 49, while 18 percent of the cases involved the elderly," Au noted.
Larry Lee Lap-yip, chief manager (Integrated Clinical Services) of the Hospital Authority, said at the same briefing that 17 critical patients, including three in intensive care units, and eight patients in serious condition were being treated in public hospitals.
He added that there were no new reported deaths, with the toll during the city’s fifth wave of infections remaining at 9,180.