Uninvited partygoer positive, new unlinked case found

Health officials on Sunday said they had found another unlinked preliminary positive case of Covid-19 in Hong Kong, as well as another suspected infection involving people who attended a recent party for a National People’s Congress deputy.

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said the untraceable case involves a 20-year-old who works as a part-time saleswoman at the SOGO department store in Causeway Bay.

She last worked there on December 28, and has also been working at her family’s pharmacy in the H.A.N.D.S. shopping mall in Tuen Mun.

The woman lives in the Aegean Coast residential development in Tuen Mun.

Among more than 20 other new preliminary positive cases is a woman who attended NPC delegate Witman Hung’s birthday party last Monday.

The 43-year-old woman works at the Cable TV Tower in Tsuen Wan, but not for the television station.

She wasn’t on Hung’s guest list but joined the party anyway after 9.30pm, along with a 37-year-old woman who is a confirmed Covid patient.

“[This woman] actually went with [the index case] … and also they had drinks and snacks together before they went to the party,” Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan from the Centre for Health Protection, told a press conference.

“It’s possible she got the infection from the other lady through these drinks and snacks, and maybe through the party. Based on these two cases, I think our current classification of close contacts [at the party] is still valid.”

Chuang said that taking into account people who weren’t on the official guest list, it is now known that there were more than 190 people at Hung’s banquet, rather than the 180 or so announced earlier.

She said she was concerned there may be other partygoers who are unaccounted for, and any such people should contact health authorities as soon as possible.