Daily caseload to drop to three digits by end of April as over 4.4m people infected, HKU study suggests

Over 4.4 million people in Hong Kong have been infected with Covid-19 during the fifth and worst wave of outbreaks, according to the latest estimations by medical experts at the University of Hong Kong.  

Dean of HKU medical school Gabriel Matthew Leung, who led the research team, said on Tuesday that the approximation accounts for around 60 percent of Hong Kong’s population, which totaled approximately 7.4 million by the end of last year.  

He said the daily caseload is expected to drop into three digits on April 21, the day authorities are expected to initiate a phased easing of the city’s Covid curbs.  

Meanwhile, Leung noted that the government had to make a prompt decision on the way in which they planned to fight the epidemic.  

Should authorities choose to stick with a dynamic zero-Covid approach, the mass Covid testing would be necessary and should be carried out more than three times, he said.  

He pointed out if Hong Kong is to continue with the mass testing, authorities must make sure they have the ability to conduct contact tracing to screen out Covid carriers, which will pose a certain degree of difficulty.  

However, Leung said if the government’s pandemic strategy has now shifted to reducing infections, deaths, and severe cases, it would mean authorities will no longer have to screen out every single Covid carrier in the city.  

By then, the government will instead focus on minimizing the number of patients needing hospital care to prevent hospitals from overloading, Leung added.