Pedestrians wearing face masks walk under the rain in Hong Kong on June 9, 2022. (CALVIN NG / CHINA DAILY)
HONG KONG – Hong Kong reported 674 new COVId-19 cases on Thursday, as two bars in Central that had outbreaks recorded 17 more infections.
Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection, said in a news briefing that 73 of the new cases were imported, including 38 that were found at the airport.
Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection, said that there were 90 cases reported from 81 schools, involving 68 students and 22 teaching staff members
She added 332 cases were confirmed through nucleic acid tests and 342 by rapid antigen tests.
Thursday’s figure is higher than the 558 infections logged on Wednesday, bringing the infection tally during the city's fifth wave of COVID-19 to 1,204,211.
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Chuang said the cluster at the Shuffle bar in Central had 13 more cases, increasing its total to 110, involving 104 patrons and six staff members. The tally at the Linq bar cluster also increased to 99 after it had four new infections.
Chuang said genome sequencing showed that the virus strains at Linq, Shuffle and Iron Fairies, another Central had bar that had an outbreak, were similar.
“They are pretty similar. There were some transmissions among the patients,” she said.
Chuang also said that there were 90 cases reported from 81 schools, involving 68 students and 22 teaching staff members. The Kowloon Tong Funful English Primary School had two more infections, bringing its tally to 17.
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She added that the CHP was also looking into the infection of a part-time worker at the Regala Skycity Hotel, a quarantine hotel, after she was suspected of having either the BA.4 or BA.5 Omicron subvariant.
“She had felt unwell and was delivering supplies to infected people while wearing PPE and goggles. She was likely infected in her workplace,” Chuang said.
Lau Ka-hin, chief manager (quality and standards) of the Hospital Authority, said in the same briefing that an 89-year-old man who was infected with COVID-19 died on June 7, bringing the toll to 9,177.
Lau said the patient, who had heart problems, apparenlty died after an artery in his brain got blocked and not due to COVID-19.
"He passed out at home and was found by a neighbor. He became unconscious upon arrival at Tuen Mun hospital and passed away at 11 pm on June 7,” Lau said.
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Meanwhile, two cases were detected during an overnight targeted testing operation at Tower 1, Lake Silver in Ma On Shan, where 741 people underwent compulsory testing.
Government staff members visited 257 households but 38 did not answer the door. The government reminded them to get tested as soon as possible to help prevent the spread of the virus.