Suspected vertical transmission leads to partial evacuation of North Point's Maple Gardens

All residents living in B units of Maple Gardens Phase III will be evacuated to a quarantine center after suspected vertical transmission and infection in a man on the ninth floor from two infected residents on the sixth floor, government advisor Yuen Kwok-yung said.   

This came as a 32-year-old man living in unit 9B tested preliminary positive after displaying respiratory symptoms on Sunday and consulted the emergency room at Queen Mary Hospital on Tuesday evening.   

Earlier on Tuesday, a 48-year-old man working at Citic Securities and living in unit 6B of the building tested preliminarily positive for suspected Omicron infection. His mother, who lives with him, has also tested preliminary positive.   

Speaking after inspecting the block on Wednesday, Yuen said the man living in unit 9B has never filled water into the u-trap of his toilet, rendering it unable to block Covid-carrying air from lower to upper floors.   

He said Maple's Phase III is undergoing construction at the external wall, and the man living in unit 9B had kept his windows closed because of that. At the same time, he turned on ventilation fans in the toilet, which eventually sucked contaminated air from the sixth to the ninth floor.   

As a precautionary measure, he said that 14 households living in unit B of the block should evacuate to a quarantine center.   

Yuen said this is the second local case of vertical transmission by Omicron cases, showing the variant is highly transmissible by air.   

In response to the United States' Centre for Disease Control and Prevention's advice for people to wear N95 masks for high protection, Yuen said it is not feasible as one can suffer from shortness of breath after wearing N95 masks for some time.   

But he recommended citizens wear two surgical masks at a time to increase air filtration.