Woman infected during quarantine spreads virus to 9 other people

By Daisy CL Mandap 

Experts found the virus on a toilet faucet, air purifier and vent in a room in Silka 

A Pakistani woman who was infected with Covid-19 while spending her 21-day quarantine in Silka Seaview Hotel in Yau Ma Tei, appears to have passed on the virus to nine other people belonging to two households.

This was revealed at the press briefing today, Jan 17, by Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan of the Centre for Health Protection.

The 43-year-old woman who was confirmed to carry the coronavirus with the Omicron variant yesterday, tested positive four days after ending her hotel quarantine.

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Chuang said five of the woman’s relatives who live with her, as well as four members of a related household in Sham Shui Po, have all tested preliminary positive.

The woman had traveled to Hong Kong on Dec 20 with a child who shared her quarantine hotel. The child was picked up by a family in the second household after they left the hotel.

“It’s possible that during that occasion the family got infected,” said Chuang, who added that the child did not test positive.

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CHP is now tracing the close contacts of the two families to stop the virus from spreading further.

Earlier, genome sequencing showed the virus appears to have spread among six people, including the woman, who had stayed in four rooms located on two different floors of Silka Seaview.

Experts who inspected the hotel said the virus must have spread in the corridors and infected the guests when they opened their doors.

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Of the 60 samples they took from the hotel, the virus was found on some items, like an air purifier and a vent and toilet faucet in one of the rooms.

In all, seven confirmed cases of Covid-19 were reported today, four of them locally acquired.

The local infections included a 23-year-old woman working in a pet shop who carried the Delta variant, which has been overshadowed by Omicron as the dominant variant around the globe.

Chuang said the source of her infection is still unknown, and gives rise to fears that a second silent transmission of the virus is going on in the community.

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The three other local cases are all linked to a 19-year-old male student who tested positive earlier. Two are family members while the third is a domestic worker. They had all been taken to a quarantine centre when they tested positive.

The new cases took Hong Kong’s total tally to 13,048, with 376 patients still being treated in hospitals.

CHP also reported detecting 40 additional Omicron cases, taking the total number to 453 cases so far.