Officials look into 30 ‘unusual’ preliminary cases

Health authorities are investigating whether there are any irregularities at a laboratory processing Covid tests, after it detected 30 preliminary positive cases on a single day from people living in different buildings all across the city.

Speaking at a regular press briefing, Dr Albert Au from the Centre for Health Protection said the patients had been admitted to hospitals for isolation, but nine subsequently tested negative for the coronavirus.

Au said officials will still handle the cases the same way as confirmed cases – by isolating those involved and putting their close contacts in quarantine.

He called this “unusual circumstances”, and added the government has asked University of Hong Kong microbiologist, Yuen Kwok-yung, who’s advising the administration on the pandemic, to inspect the laboratory in question, run by BGI.

“I have to say that this is a bit unusual. Because there were 30 cases from the same lab on the same day, so this is a bit strange,” he said.

“There are two possibilities. The first is that some of these cases are true positive cases, and there is silent transmission or even outbreak in the community which had not been detected before,” he said.

“Another possibility is that some of these cases are false positive, but for the reasons why they tested positive but negative after admission to hospital – that requires further investigation,” said Au.

Meanwhile, health officials on Thursday reported two new confirmed local cases, with neither of them having a clear source of infection.

One of them involves a teacher who lives in Tseung Kwan O, and works at Greenfield English International Kindergarten in Lohas Park. Around 30 children she taught have been sent into quarantine.

The other local case involves a 19-year-old man, who lives in San Wai Court in Tuen Mun, and works at the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals.

People who had worked with him were ordered to get tested.

Twelve imported cases were recorded, comprising people flying in from Nepal, India, Pakistan and Turkey – four of them were found to be carrying the N501Y mutation of the virus.

One of them was identified when being quarantined at the Ramada Hong Kong Grand Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Authorities suspect there might have been cross-infection between guests who were quarantined on the same floor of the hotel..

Officials said they had also ordered two more rounds of mandatory testing for people who’ve been to places where two patients carrying a highly infectious variant of Covid-19 visited – including Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui.