Hong Kong reports 34,466 Covid cases on Monday

Hong Kong reported a record daily number of 34,466 Covid-19 cases on Monday, a double from 17,063 two days ago. 

Officials warned the number, which almost double every two or three days, will continue to go up. 

Five more Covid clinics will launch on Tuesday, increasing the total number to 14. They are Tang Shiu Kin Hospital Violet Peel General Outpatient Clinic, Aberdeen Jockey Club General Out-Patient Clinic, Tseung Kwan O (Po Ning Road) Out-Patient Clinic, Fanling Family Medicine Center and Yan Oi General Out-Patient Clinic. 

Over the past 24 hours, another 87 Covid-19 patients died. They were aged between 51 and 100, a majority of them being elderly people. 

Among them, 49 were residents of care homes. Sixty seven were unvaccinated. 

A total of 636 people died since the fifth wave of outbreak. The Centre of Health Protection looked into 442 of those cases and found 92 percent of the cases to be aged 60 or above. Their median age was 84.

The fatality rate was 0.04 percent for patients aged 9 or below. It was much higher for elderly people – 0.17 percent for those aged between 60 and 69, and 0.87 percent for those between 70 and 79.

For those aged 80 or above, unvaccinated ones saw a fatality rate of 4.34 percent – 16 times as much as those who received two or more vaccine jabs. 

Across all age groups, 81 percent of the dead patients did not receive any Covid-19 vaccines. The fatality rate for those who received two or more jabs was 0.03 percent. 

Meanwhile, infectious disease expert Ho Pak-leung from the University of Hong Kong said infection numbers will surge to a much greater extent after the government sets up a self-declaration platform for patients to report their positive results.

But the platform will allow authorities to know more about the age, living conditions and vaccination status of confirmed cases, which could assist when arranging citizens to be sent to isolation facilities, he said.

Citing overseas experience that epidemics usually go downhill one to two months into mass outbreak, he expected the number of infections in the SAR will continue to rise this week.

Chief Secretary for Administration John Lee Ka-chiu completed quarantine after his helper tested positive on February 15. Lee tested negative in rapid tests on Sunday and yesterday, and he returned to his office on Monday.