By Daisy CL Mandap
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| Hui says the trend shows the daily confirmed cases hit 10,000 starting Saturday |
A top health official
has said there could be a further tightening of restrictions as 6,067 confirmed
cases were reported Sunday, with thousands more still waiting to be verified.
Speaking at the daily
press conference on the Covid-19 situation, Dr Edwin Tsui, controller of the
Centre for Health Protection said the current trend points to a daily infection
rate of 10,000 so the situation is critical.
Thus, he said
relaxing social distancing measures is definitely off the cards for now. Either
the current regulations are maintained, or they are tightened further, like
minimizing the dining period in restaurants.
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He also pointed out
to the scheduled implementation of the vaccine bubble on Thursday, Feb 24, as a
further tightening of measures. He said that for places where people are allowed
to take off their masks as in restaurants, vaccination is a must.
Dr Tsui warned that
for people entering malls after that day, they should make sure they have been
vaccinated or they might be breaking the law, and could be penalized.
Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan
of CHP’s infectious disease branch said that of today’s confirmed cases, 12
were imported and the rest were all locally acquired.
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Thirty-two carried
the mutant strains linked to the Delta variant, while 3,188 were likely Omicron.
Test results for the other cases were still being awaited or the sample
collected was not sufficient for testing.
Since Feb 15 she said
the infection rate has gone up at an alarming rate. Between Feb 15 to Feb 17 the
daily tally was just around 4,000; then it climbed up to 7,000 the next day, before
hitting 10,000 on Feb 19.
She said CHP would no
longer provide the data for those tested preliminary positive as they no longer
reflect the true numbers because of the backlog in confirming results.
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Asked if this
indicated the CHP was trying to hide the true picture of the infection spread,
Dr Chuang said, “We are not withholding information but giving more accurate
figures.”
She said 10,416
patients are currently staying at home, waiting to be put in a hospital or
isolation facility.
Meanwhile, Dr Sara Ho
from the Hospital Authority said 14 more people died in the past 24 hours, all
of them elderly. They were seven males and seven females, aged between 70 and
98.
Ten other patients aged
45 to 93 are critically ill, while “scores” are in serious condition.
While 227 patients
were discharged in the past day, hospital beds remained full because of high
demand.
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A total of 3,701
patients were being treated in public hospitals and three infection control
centers, while nearly an equal number were in two isolation facilities. Penny’s
Bay Isolation Centre has 3,200 patients under its care while Tsuen Wan Isolation
Facility has more than 200.
Dr Ho said hospitals are
trying their best to look after patients queuing up to be admitted, and are
looking for more places where they can be moved so they can rest comfortably.
She appealed to the
public to be more understanding of hospital staff, many of whom do not even
have time for meal breaks because of the heavy workload.
“I understand there may be frustration but
please don’t take it out on our staff,” she said.
Dr Ho repeated an
appeal for private doctors to step up to help cope with the crisis, and said talks
are ongoing with private hospitals
Dr Tsui said the
government is increasing isolation centers. A new facility being built at Kai
Tak Cruise Terminal will have 10,000 beds while a number of hotels will turn
into isolation hotels.
However, the isolation
units will be reserved for those with urgent needs. Those with minor or no
symptoms will have to remain at home and wait for the CHP to find an isolation
space for them, or spend the full mandatory 14-day quarantine at home.
If one tests
positive, everybody living with him or her must also self-quarantine to stop
the virus from spreading further.
Including today’s
confirmed cases, Hong Kong’s total Covid-19 tally has now gone up to 52,830
with 300 deaths.
