by The SUN
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| Rapid testing kits were in the care packs distributed to residents last week |
Hong Kong’s confirmed cases of Covid-19 fell to 1,921 Sunday, with more than half being reported by residents who took part in the three-day voluntary self-testing as suggested by the government.
Dr Albert Au of the Centre for Health Protection said 888 of the new cases were detected through PCR tests while 1,033 came from positive results from rapid tests that were reported to the government platform.
Au said the self-testing exercise had been successful as health authorities received a total of 2,202 reports from people who tested positive on rapid tests on Friday and Saturday, the first two days of voluntary testing.
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He said the figure might increase when the results from the third and last day of the self-testing exercise come in.
Among those who reported their positive results 68.7% had no
symptoms, which meant that they could have continued mixing with people and
passing on the virus to them.
"Nearly 70 percent of the 2,000 cases were asymptomatic. If
they had not done the test, they would have continued to go out and had contact
with other people without knowing they're infected. The transmission chain
would have continued,” Au said.
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The fact that there are now more cases confirmed through rapid tests than through PCR tests means that people have responded to the government’s appeal to test themselves and help curb silent transmissions, he added.
Earlier Chief Executive Carrie Lam also said there had been a surge in the reported rapid test results as the three-day voluntary self-test exercise entered its third day.
But she said the overall tally was falling, with the cases confirmed by PCR tests now down to three digits.
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While there’s no way of knowing how many residents had completed the voluntary tests, the CE said there was anecdotal evidence from social media suggesting many of them had taken part.
She also said that unless there’s another huge surge of the
coronavirus, the plan to gradually relax social distancing measures will go
ahead from Apr 21.
“But the relaxation will be gradual, it will take three stages over three months in order to remove most of the social distancing measures we have put in. But apparently, it will have no particular relevance to the RAT exercise," she said.
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Of the new cases, 18 were imported and were brought in by
travelers from Malta, the Philippines, Turkey, USA, Greece, Japan and
Indonesia.
As Japan Airlines and Turkish Airlines have each carried three or more passengers who tested positive for Covid on arrival in Hong Kong, they both have been suspended from flying in from Tokyo and Istanbul for seven days respectively.
Au said the city’s tally from the Omicron outbreak has gone up to
1,175,552.
An additional 65 deaths have been reported, including 53 that happened on Saturday. The rest were recorded earlier but were not tallied on time.
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They pushed the death toll in the fifth wave to 8,557.
The youngest fatality was a 31-year-old man who fainted at home last month. He received two doses of the BioNTech vaccine in August last year.
In mid-October he had a fever and chest discomfort and he sought treatment at a private hospital. An electrocardiogram done on him showed an abnormal result and he was admitted to a public hospital on Oct 17.
On admission, he was tested for Covid but the result was negative. He was diagnosed with myocarditis and given medicines.
On Mar 9 he lost consciousness at home and had convulsions for 30 seconds. He was taken to hospital but was certified death. A postmortem showed he had Covid-19.
