Thai man who overstayed among HK’s new 26 COVID-19 cases

A map of all the COVID-19 infections in the city. (Screenshot: CHP)

Hong Kong recorded 26 new cases of coronavirus disease on Wednesday, the lowest number since over a month.

Among them is a Thai national who overstayed his visa. Dr. Chuang Shuk-kwan from the Centre for Health protection said the man tested positive after he was brought to the Castle Peak Bay Immigration Centre.

The man, who was asymptomatic, stayed with three other inmates for at most two days, Chuang said. They, along with two Immigration Department staff, will be quarantined.

Chuang added chances of an outbreak in the detention center are low. But as a precaution, they will offer tests to the inmates and immigration offices there.

This comes on the heels of Chief Executive Carrie Lam raising concern over two infection clusters in the city. The government has sent specimen bottles to test around 8,000 people in a container port in Kwai Tsing, as well as to close contacts of a dormitory where Indonesian domestic workers stayed.

Chuang said they have tested 3,400 specimens from the container port cluster as of this morning.

The daily count bring Hong Kong’s total number of cases to 4,587. There are now 72 COVID-19 related deaths after an 86-year-old male passed away.

Eight cases from the daily tally had unclear sources of infection. Chuang said this is still quite a high number and has warned against possible silent carriers of the virus.