Six more families down with Covid at Yat Kwai House

Health officials say there’s a downward trend in the number of newly infected households at the Kwai Chung Estate block where an Omicron cluster started, as they express hope that the peak of the outbreak might be over.

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) on Wednesday reported 58 new cases linked to the public housing estate, as the tally of confirmed or suspected infections in the cluster rose to 334.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan from the CHP said while 45 of the new patients are from Yat Kwai House – where most cases were from – they come from just six flats.

Chuang said she hopes the spread of the virus in the block has peaked, but added authorities still need to observe the situation for a few more days.

“We observe that the number of units has gone down to single digits, so this shows a decreasing trend today, but we still need to observe for a few more days for Yat Kwai [House],”

“For the other buildings, we still need to observe, especially for Ying Kwai [House],”she said.

Ying Kwai House, which was placed under several days of lockdown like Yat Kwai House, recorded eight new infections, from two previously uninfected families.

Officials were asked to respond to residents’ concerns over possible cross-infections when they go downstairs for regular testing.

“Before we start the testing, every day we have to confirm the address of the tenants who are confirmed positive or preliminary positive cases. And then we have to inform them not to go down to carry out the test,” explained Ian Luk, the Assistant Director of Housing (Estate Management).

“After we’ve informed these tenants, we will start to do the testing, so the testing time will be different on different days. We will orderly inform the tenants to go downstairs to carry out the tests.”

Separately, the government announced the extension of the lockdown of Ying Kwai House by two more days until Saturday morning.

The five-day lockdown of Yat Kwai House was extended earlier.

In total, Hong Kong reported 107 new Covid infections for the day, 100 of which are local infections.

It’s the fourth day running that Hong Kong has seen a daily caseload of over 100.

Among the local infections, officials are not able to trace the source of seven cases.

One of them is an elderly woman who lives in a Fu Keung House flat of Tai Wo Hau Estate but is thought to be unrelated to a suspected vertical transmission in the block.

Another case involves a man who lives on Victory Avenue in a building next to a construction site that has seen a recent Covid outbreak.

Also untraceable for now are two airport workers: a washroom cleaner who lives in Tsing Yi and a security guard at Cathay City who lives in Tai Wo Hau Estate.

Meanwhile, officials are sending more residents of a Wong Tai Sin block into quarantine, after one more resident got infected.

There are around 130 preliminary positive cases.
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Last updated: 2022-01-26 HKT 20:37