The Covid-19 cluster in Jordan and Yau Ma Tei continues to spread, with 55 confirmed positive cases and 80 preliminary positive cases recorded on Sunday. Most of the cases were identified by a temporary testing centre in Yau Ma Tei, as residents from specified buildings nearby have been ordered to undergo mandatory testing.
Of the 55 confirmed cases, 16 cases had unknown sources, 4 cases were imported, health authorities said.
In the press briefing Sunday, the head of the Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch Chuang Shuk-kwan said that “identifying more cases was somewhat within expectation, although the numbers seem a bit excessive.”
To cut transmission of the virus in the district, people living in the area between Nathan Road, Jordan Road, Ferry Street, and Kansu Street were required on Saturday to take a test within three days if their building reported one or more cases, Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan announced last week. The testing is mandatory and a mobile testing station were set up at the Kwun Chung Sports Centre to supplement the existing testing centre at the Henry G. Leong Yau Ma Tei Community Centre.
Residents at six more buildings have been ordered to undergo mandatory testing, the government announced on Sunday. Since end of December, around 99 Covid-19 cases have been identified in the area covered by the Yau Tsim Mong mandatory testing order, Chuang said.
About 80 residents and staff from a retirement home in Shum Shui Po were also evacuated over the weekend to be quarantined at government facilities, after an elderly resident tested positive for Covid-19.
A nurse working at a palliative care ward in the Shum Shui Po Caritas Medical Cenre was also tested preliminary positive with Covid-19 through community testing on Saturday, a Hospital Authority spokesperson said.
The nurse was likely to have been infected from the community rather than from the hospital, the spokesperson said, as they did not have contact with Covid-19 patients in the hospital, and the building where they reside was located within the area under the mandatory virus testing order. Two hospital staff members in close contact have been placed in quarantine.
Over 7,000 residents from the affected area have been tested over the past two days.
Hong Kong has confirmed 9,558 cases of the coronavirus and 162 deaths.
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