‘Covid patients may have to self-isolate at home’

The head of the Hospital Authority, Tony Ko, said on Sunday that patients may eventually have to self-isolate at home if quarantine facilities become overwhelmed, but added medical staff will check on them over the phone.

Authorities had announced that the Penny’s Bay quarantine centre will be ready to house patients with no or mild symptoms, after Hong Kong saw its worst Covid-19 outbreaks, with daily tally of new cases exceeding 350 on Saturday.

Ko said medical staff from the Hospital Authority (HA) will be on standby at the camp.

“We will arrange relatively low-risk patients to isolate at Penny’s Bay. Drawing from our own experiences and that in other countries, these people usually need little medical care,” he said.

“But as a precaution, we will station medical staff there and provide assistance to patients when necessary. In the rare event of emergencies, our staff will send patients in need to nearby hospital facilities, such as the accident and emergency unit, as soon as possible.”

Speaking on a TVB programme, the HA chief executive warned that if Penny’s Bay is filled up, some of the patients who do not need medical treatment may have to quarantine at home instead, and medical advice will be provide remotely, such as over the phone.

“If there’s an exponential or tsunami-like increase [in number of cases], like several thousand a day or more, obviously it’s not practical to quarantine them all at Penny’s Bay. They may have to be isolate at home while they recover,” he said.

But not every household is suitable for home isolation, he noted.

“If a patient lives with an elderly family member or an unvaccinated individual, home quarantine would obviously be unsuitable for them. Perhaps it would be better to send the patient to a quarantine facility,” he said.

While Ko said it’s “worrying” that more hospital staff have been infected, he believed the situation is still under control and has not disrupted services, adding that the HA has contingency plans in place to prevent the healthcare system from breaking down.