China

Hong Kong experts warn of Christmas Covid-19 rush, predict citywide vaccine coverage by 2022 'if lucky'


Leading health experts have warned Hong Kong must remain vigilant against a possible new wave of the coronavirus with thousands of people returning home for the holidays, while cautioning that inoculation of the entire population may not be possible until 2022.

The city’s Covid-19 spike showed no signs of easing on Sunday (Dec 6) as another 95 cases were confirmed, including a fresh cluster at a public housing estate involving at least a dozen residents.

In another worrying development, a worker at the main community treatment and quarantine centre also tested positive, forcing about 100 people to be temporarily relocated to other areas of the facility.

Of the latest cases, 87 were locally transmitted, 36 of which were untraceable, according to the Centre for Health Protection. At least 50 people also tested preliminary-positive.

Professor David Hui Shu-cheong, a respiratory medicine expert at Chinese University and government adviser on the pandemic, gave an approximate timeline for when the city could expect to receive vaccine supplies.

“If we are lucky, by the third quarter of next year we will start seeing the first batches of vaccines arrive, and I believe by around 2022, the chance for all Hongkongers to be vaccinated should be quite high,” he said.

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Hui urged residents to be patient as the government was already in the process of procuring doses through the Covax Facility, a distribution scheme co-led by the World Health Organisation. Officials were also dealing directly with manufacturers to obtain shots, he said. Hui estimated in September that the first batches would be available by April at the earliest.

The public housing cluster involved at least 12 people living on the fifth floor of Block 8 of Kwai Shing West Estate in Kwai Chung. Authorities suspect the infections, spread across five families, were the result of environmental contamination.

All residents of the block would receive specimen testing bottles, but mass evacuations were not required as no floor-to-floor transmission had been observed.

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The latest cases also involved staff working at Hall 5 and 7 of AsiaWorld-Expo, which has been converted into a temporary treatment facility to house people with mild symptoms, and a quarantine centre for residents from homes for the elderly.

One worker was confirmed positive and two others tested preliminary-positive.

About 100 people who were undergoing quarantine in both halls would be moved, while colleagues of the three workers would undergo screening, said Dr Albert Au Ka-wing, the centre’s principal medical and health officer. Au believed the risk of an outbreak among workers at AsiaWorld-Expo was low as all staff wore “adequate” protective gear during their shifts.

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Existing clusters also continued to expand, with 18 more cases tied to dance venues, taking the outbreak to at least 644 cases, while nine more infections were connected to a construction site in Tseung Kwan O, pushing its total to 45.

Two police officers were also revealed as carrying the virus – a 54-year-old man posted to Kowloon City Court and a 48-year-old man based at the New Territories Regional Command and Control Centre.

The latest cases brought the city’s total number of confirmed infections to 6,897, with 112 related deaths.

Two staff at the Centre for Health Protection and two chefs at Causeway Bay restaurant Duckee – where three cases were already confirmed positive – were among the more than 50 preliminary cases.

Meanwhile, health authorities were unable to track down a person whose specimen sample tested positive at the Henry G. Leong Yaumatei Community Centre, prompting officials to call for people who left specimens at the centre last Friday morning to get retested if they had not yet received confirmation of a negative result.

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The rail operator said that beginning on Monday (Dec 7) it would set up machines to distribute specimen testing bottles at 10 stations across the city, including at North Point, Wong Chuk Hang and Tsing Yi.

The MTR Corporation said the machines could supply a total of about 10,000 bottles each day and operated with an Octopus card, although residents would not be charged. The samples must be returned to government clinics for testing.

Health authorities are preparing for a possible onslaught of new cases as residents, many of them students, return home for the holidays.

Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong who also advises the government on the health crisis, said about 20,000 Hongkongers were expected to return to the city from Europe, the United States and elsewhere over the holiday season.

Based on past statistics, about 0.4 per cent of the arrivals would be infected, or about 80 people. Of those, between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent would be asymptomatic, meaning between two and four people who do not exhibit any symptoms would enter the community.

“If they go to the bars, restaurants, or even Lan Kwai Fong … then they’d be spreading the virus around,” he told a radio programme, referring to the nightlife hub in Central. “The fourth wave is not over yet but there could already be another virus strain from Britain, the US or Australia in Hong Kong. That could be the fifth or sixth wave in the making.”

For the latest updates on the coronavirus, visit here.

This article was first published in South China Morning Post.



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