By The SUN
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| Dr Au says the BA.5 sub-variant is behind the rising trend in infections |
Health
officials warned Saturday that the daily Covid caseload may climb further, and
lead to a new wave of infections come winter.
Dr Albert Au of the Centre for Health Protection made the statement as the day’s infection tally rose to 6,389 – the third day in a row that the total caseload has breached the 6,000 mark.
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Au said that according to studies by the University of Hong Kong, the reproduction rate of the coronavirus has risen to 1.2 percent, while the positivity rate from sewage samples is also at its highest level since March.
The driving factor for the rising trend could be the highly transmissible Omicron sub-variant BA.5, which now accounts for 30.2 percent of all local cases.
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"We expect that in the near future, we will have a higher
percentage of BA.5 cases, and that will cause cases to grow further," Au
said. "This mirrors the trend in other countries. When the percentage of
BA.5 cases exceeds a certain level, then the rise [in cases] can be very sharp,
and very soon it will replace other sub-lineages to be the mainstream."
He also said an outbreak could occur later this year because the
immunity among recovered patients would begin to wane.
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"It's been three months since we had the peak of the fifth
wave," Au said. "So we are afraid that as we enter winter there will
be another wave of outbreak."
Au also reported five related deaths involving patients aged between 55 and 99, none of whom received the full three doses of the vaccine.
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Dr Lau Ka-hin of the Hospital Authority said most of the fatalities had critical ailments like the 84-year-old woman who had late-stage colorectal cancer and a 99-year-old female patient who had one kidney removed, so Covid was not the likely cause of their deaths.
Lau also said that the number of Covid patients receiving treatment in public hospitals had gone up to 1,904 with the addition of 266 new admissions.
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Seven of the new patients were admitted in critical condition, causing the number of patients in this category to go up to 40, including 12 who are in intensive care. Six new patients were admitted in serious condition, leading to an overall tally of 27 for this category.
Lau also confirmed reports that the Kai Tak isolation facility has been opened in case there is a new surge in cases. This will supplement the 200 Covid beds in the community isolation facility in AsiaWorld-Expo that will reopen next week.
Meanwhile, of the 179 imported cases, 60 were detected at the airport, 57 during the three-day hotel quarantine and 62 in community testing centers.
The infected travelers had come from 45 countries, and four of them had more than 10 passengers who flew in with the virus. These are the United Kingdom with 20 infected passengers, the Philippines and United States with 17 each, and India with 12.
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