Strict Covid-19 testing imposed on Kwai Tsing terminals, ship service staff

By The SUN

Unvaccinated staff at the container terminal will be tested daily

Frontline staff of Kwai Tsing Container Terminals and the ship services sector will be sent to as frequent as daily testing for Covid-19 if they’re not fully inoculated, and every three days if they are, the government announced today, Nov 14.

The new testing requirements for the frontline terminal staff will begin Monday within 21 days after disembarking from ocean-going cargo vessels.

The container terminal’s frontline staff includes stevedores or tally men, operations supervisors, reefer technicians, safety officers and gangway security officers who board ocean-going vessels that dock at the terminals.

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Starting Nov 22, compulsory testing arrangements will be imposed on frontline staff of the ship services sector. These include harbor pilots, frontline terminal staff, stevedores or tally men who also need to board the vessels arriving in Hong Kong.

New testing stations will be set up in Sheung Wan, Tuen Mun and Yau Ma Tei, in addition to existing ones in Kwai Tsing and Tsuen Wan West, the authorities said.

Meanwhile, compulsory testing of residents found no coronavirus cases at Hampton Place in Tai Kok Tsui, where a male Cathay Pacific crew with three vaccine shots lived before he was confirmed last night as Hong Kong’s latest coronavirus case.

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The Centre for Health Protection said the case took Hong Kong’s total cases to 12,382 so far. The SAR had 35 confirmed cases the past 14 days until Nov 13, all of them being imported cases.

The 53-year-old crew, who received his third BioNTech vaccine dose just last Thursday after two jabs of the vaccine on Mar 11 and Apr 7 in Hong Kong, was found positive of Covid-19 with the L452 mutant strain as of Saturday night.

The CHP said the man was asymptomatic when he arrived from Frankfurt, Germany, on board CX 3166 on Nov 7 and tested negative at Hong Kong International Airport.

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He underwent compulsory testing on Friday in accordance with the relevant requirements for quarantine-exempt persons and his sample collected at a community testing center tested preliminary positive for Covid-19, with Ct value about 24 to 26. 

No one among 560 residents of Hampton Place tested positive for Covid-19

The presence of the mutant strain prompted the government to declare the lockdown on Hampton Place. Places that the man had visited in Hong Kong during the incubation period were also included in a compulsory testing notice 

The overnight lockdown on Towers 1, 2 and 3 of Hampton Place was lifted after no Covid cases were found among 560 residents tested when the exercise ended at 7am.

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Other people who were at the place for over two hours between Oct 22 and Nov 13 must undergo compulsory testing even if they were not there when the declaration took effect, the government said.

Around 320 staff from the Home Affairs Department, Hong Kong Police, Department of Health and the Auxiliary Medical Service implemented the declaration and enforced actions for breaches of the CTN.

Some 48 persons were slapped withfixed penalty of $5,000 each and/or issued compulsory testing orders after they were found to have skipped the testing. The declaration was lifted at 11:15am.

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About 140 households who have not answered the door bell should contact the authorities for arrangement of testing as soon as possible, the government said. 

Cathay said it is stepping up checks on compliance at overseas stations. Two of its cargo pilots had also tested preliminary positive for Covid-19 upon their return from Frankfurt on Nov 6, the CHP said.

Their household members and close contacts were quarantined. They included 13 close contacts and 120 students at Discovery Bay International School, where the wife of one of the pilots teaches and their two sons attend. Sixty friends and colleagues of the other pilot were also quarantined.

Cargo pilots are exempt from hotel quarantine, but the government said on Friday that it would tighten infection-control measures for flight crew members.

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