Health expert suggests three-day total lockdown on Covid-hit Kwai Chung building

A health expert on Friday said authorities should bar people from leaving a Covid-hit building in Kwai Chung for three days instead of allowing them to leave once they tested negative for the coronavirus.  

Respiratory disease expert David Hui Shu-cheong, also a government advisor on the pandemic, said the "superspreading" event at Yat Kwai House of Kwai Chung Estate may have been caused by environmental contamination with residents sharing the same hall or using the same elevators.  

He said the government should lock down the building for three days to ensure residents remained Covid negative for a certain period before leaving the building.  

However, Hui said authorities may not have sufficient personnel to handle the total lockdown and relevant arrangements such as delivering daily necessities for residents.  

He urged residents of the building to avoid going outdoors to lower the risk of further transmissions.  

Currently, people living in the building have to take Covid tests every night and show a negative result if they want to leave the block in the morning. Residents can leave as they wish.

Meanwhile, health authorities on Thursday are investigating a kindergarten teacher's infection where they suspect she may have caught Covid-19 as she walked past two infected children at a Mei Foo MTR exit.  

Genetic sequencing shows the 26-year-old teacher who lives in Mei Foo Sun Chuen carried the same strain as a 43-year-old woman who was suspected of having caught Covid-19 at a quarantine hotel.  

Further investigation shows the teacher and two sons of the 43-year-old woman showed up at the same MTR exit – Mei Foo MTR exit A – nine seconds apart. The teacher was heading to work while the children were going to school.  

Hui said although the two parties did not have direct contact and were both wearing masks, the transmission may still have occurred given droplets smaller than 5 micrometers could pass through the masks, or perhaps the virus went through the spaces on the side of the mask.  

"The virus-containing droplets might contaminate the surface of the mask, or having transmitted through both eyes," said Hui, suggesting citizens could wear two masks and wear plain-glass spectacles to lower the risk of contracting the virus.