Fully vaccinated man infected with Covid-19

A member of staff at BGI, a mainland firm responsible for Covid-19 testing in Hong Kong, has tested positive for coronavirus despite being fully inoculated.

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said on Friday that the 29-year-old man took his two BioNTech jabs on March 20 and April 10, and attended work at his Tai Po office on Wednesday.

The CHP’s Dr Au Ka-wing said they had so far been unable to trace the source of infection, but the man had a very low viral load.

“Because the vaccine offered protection to him, even after he caught the infection he did not develop any symptoms and the virus shedding was very minimal. That means the vaccine had been effective,” Au said.

Another confirmed Covid case on Friday was linked to a man found to have a mutant strain of the virus after flying in from Dubai.

The new patient, a 67-year-old woman, is the mother of the man’s female friend.

There was also a suspected imported case involving a domestic helper who flew in from Indonesia early last month.

The 22-year-old tested positive for the virus 11 days after she completed her hotel quarantine and moved into her employer’s home in Tai Po.

Her close contacts, including five people at her employer’s home, were to be put in quarantine.

“The CT value of this positive specimen is very high meaning that the viral load is very, very low… the clinical picture is more compatible to a recovered case … So we tentatively classified this case as an imported case,” Au explained.