New restaurant cluster probed as HK sees 1,685 Covid cases

Hong Kong reported 1,685 new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday as health authorities are looking into the link between two restaurant outbreak clusters in Mong Kok and Tuen Mun. 

Of the new cases, 1,533 were locally transmitted, including 603 confirmed via PCR tests and 930 verified rapid antigen test results. The remaining 152 infections were imported cases. 

The Centre for Health Protection's principal medical and health officer Albert Au Ka-wing said the caseload of the fifth wave has exceeded 1.22 million. 

Hospital Authority's chief manager for quality and standards, Lau Ka-hin, added one related death, pushing the death tally to 9,186. 

The new death involved an 88-year-old double-jabbed female elderly home resident who had a fever and saw her RAT result return positive when undergoing quarantine at AsiaWorld-Expo. She was admitted to a hospital last Saturday (Jun 25) and passed away on Monday. 

Au said that it has been two weeks since the infection cluster at Victoria Harbour Restaurant in Tuen Mun broke out on June 16, and health authorities have detected 42 cases among some 270 guests that night so far. He believed the majority of the guests had tested negative for Covid already. 

Two Tuen Mun blocks -- King On House in Shan King Estate and Hing Wai House in Tai Hing Estate, where some of the confirmed patients reside -- added three and one case, respectively. 

On the other hand, the center identified a new infection cluster at Jade Garden in MOKO, Mong Kok, where four infections were reported. 

After further investigation, the center found out one of the confirmed patients from the Tuen Mun restaurant cluster visited Jade Garden alongside a family member on June 19 afternoon. 

That family member caught Covid later as well. Four more cases, who were at the Mong Kok restaurant the same day between noon and 1pm, were then revealed, involving three diners and a waiter. 

A total of 202 positive cases were reported to the center by 172 schools. Seventy-nine schools saw two or more infections over the last week. 

Health authorities detected 28 more cases of the BA.2.12.1 Omicron subvariant and 16 more cases of the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants. 

Hospitals and treatment facilities are housing 645 Covid patients. Among them, 13 are in critical condition, 15 in serious condition, and three in intensive care. In the past 24 hours, 64 recovered Covid patients have been discharged.