The Days We Wear Masks 20210311
Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the centre’s communicable disease branch, confirmed the case with the mutant strain was a 29-year-old man with a Hong Kong identity card who worked in Dubai as an engineer.
Chuang said the patient, who was asymptomatic all along, travelled to Hong Kong on March 19 and stayed at the Ramada Hong Kong Grand Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui for 21 days of quarantine until April 8.
Upon completing his self-isolation, during which he never left his room, the man went to stay at his friend’s place in Parkes Building, located at 17-23 Parkes Street, in Jordan, and later visited an Indian restaurant in Chungking Mansions’ basement on April 9. He also visited two banks – branches of Standard Chartered and HSBC – on Nathan Road.
He took a ferry to Cheung Chau on Wednesday afternoon and had a meal at a seafood restaurant there. It was only when he was ready to go back to Dubai that he took a test on Thursday.
Chuang said mandatory testing orders would be issued to people who had visited the various locations the man had been to. They would include all residents and employees at the Tsim Sha Tsui hotel, and visitors and staff at the two banks and the Cheung Chau restaurant.
Authorities were looking into the possibility of the patient having brought in the mutant strain from Dubai which remained undetected by the multiple tests he had taken upon arrival at the airport, or whether he had picked it up at the airport, the hotel or from the community after quarantine. The patient’s high viral load indicated he was highly infectious.
Chuang said officials had conducted genome sequencing for all Covid-19 infections in Hong Kong since mid-January to watch out for mutations, and raised concerns about the prospect of the N501Y strain already circulating undetected in the community.
“We have not been able to identify other local cases [with the mutation]. Does it indicate that there were some undetected cases in the community that infected [the man]? This is something we are worried about,” Chuang said.
(20210417 SCMP)
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