This Nov 14, 2021 picture shows a passenger scanning a QR code required by the Hong Kong government for contact tracing due to COVID-19 measures, before boarding a bus operated by a Hong Kong travel agency offering five-hour "quiet bus" tour marketed as a "route to nowhere" for travel-craving residents to snooze on board in Hong Kong. (BERTHA WANG / AFP)
HONG KONG – Hong Kong reported on Thursday 10 new imported COVID-19 cases which all involved mutant strains as it banned Nepal Airlines flights from Kathmandu for two weeks.
The Centre for Health Protection said in a statement that the new patients included six men and four women, including two men and two women from Nepal. The city’s tally stood at 12,506.
The Centre for Health Protection said in a statement that the new patients included six men and four women, including two men and two women from Nepal
Eight patients tested positive during the "test-and-hold" arrangement at the airport and one tested positive during quarantine at a designated quarantine hotel, the CHP said.
The four patients from Nepal arrived from Kathmandu on a Nepal Airlines flight on Dec 14. This prompted the Department of Health to prohibit Nepal Airlines passenger flights from Kathmandu from December 16 to 29.
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The CHP also said that the patient from Japan is a sea crew member who arrived in Hong Kong onboard the cargo vessel Glory Sky on Dec 1.
There were three other earlier cases involving crew members from that vessel. Its remaining crew members have to stay on board to undergo quarantine, it added.
The CHP said it is also investigating a 51-year-old female resident of Silver Waves Court, 9 Ngan Kwong Wan Road, Mui Wo who tested positive in Taiwan.
She tested negative in Hong Kong on Nov 30 and in Taiwan on Dec 2. But on Dec 11, another test showed that she was positive for COVID-19. The patient said she developed symptoms that same day.
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The CHP said it was following up on the case with the Taiwan health authority and the places she visited in Hong Kong during the incubation period have been included in a compulsory testing notice.