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| The 2 missing seafarers flew separately to HK from Manila on Jul 24 |
Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan said at the press briefing today, Jul
31, that the sailors may have already left Hong Kong .
She identified them as cases no 2336 and 2251, and their
vessel as Gulf Fanatic.
CHP records show that Case 2336 is a 46-year-old male who
arrived in Hong Kong from Manila
Case No 2251, on the other hand, is a 37-year-old male who
arrived from Manila
“We have not located the seafarers yet, maybe they have left
Hong Kong ,” Chuang said. “But we will check
with Immigration Department.”
Despite the effort to track them down, it is not likely that
the missing sailors will be arrested as the law only punishes people who violate quarantine rules, and no
t for disappearing prior to being transferred
to an isolation facility.
This apparent loophole was shown in the case of a
37-year-old local woman who reportedly left her house in Homantin to go
shopping, while waiting to be transferred to a hospital after testing positive
for Covid-19.
Her case also highlighted the long wait for hospital faced
by those who test positive, amid record rises in infections.
For the past few days, more than 100 confirmed or
preliminary positive cases have been told to stay at home while waiting for isolation beds to be
cleared for them.
A reporter at the press briefing said the police did not
arrest the errant patient, but merely booked the incident under “miscellaneous
cases.”
Chuang said they needed to find out more about the case, but
the information they got was the woman had gone out to buy stuff to prepare for
her hospital stay.
“We advise confirmed cases that while waiting to be admitted
they should not go out,” said Chuang.
But she said the laws only prohibit those under quarantine
from going out. “Before they are admitted we don’t have any laws that will bind
them.”
That’s because ideally, patients who are confirmed to have
the coronavirus must be admitted to hospital as soon as possible, she said.
Still, she said confirmed patients must not go out so as not
to endanger the safety of the public.
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| Dr Chuang says all infected patients must be isolated to protect public health safety |
As for the Filipino sailors, the samples they left at the
AsiaWorld-Expo testing site on arrival tested positive the next day, but they
could no longer be located.
Another sailor from India
who tested positive on the same day was tracked and transferred to Queen Elizabeth
Hospital
But since the restrictions were tightened on Jul 8 amid a
surge in infections, they have all been required to leave saliva samples at the
airport, before heading off to their quarantine facilities or ships.
This has led to a small number of seafarers disappearing
from Hong Kong ’s radar after the samples they
left at the airport tested positive for Covid-19.
Rules were tightened further starting Jul 29, when air and
sea crew who get tested at the airport are prohibited from taking public
transportation, or mingling with the public until they return a negative
result.
Non-Hong Kong based air crew members are also made to wait
for their test result at AsiaWorld-Expo, and could only proceed to their
isolation facilities if they test negative.
