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Around a dozen inmates and Immigration Department staffers have been quarantined after a mainland woman arrested for illegal stay was diagnosed with Covid-19.
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The 42-year-old woman was the only unknown source local infection among seven fresh cases reported yesterday, as the city's tally rose to 5,331 including 105 deaths. The six other patients were imported, including helpers arriving from Indonesia and the Philippines.
She was arrested at Mong Kok's Oriental Lander Hotel last Wednesday. Officers brought her to Mong Kok police station and transferred her to the Castle Peak Bay Immigration Centre on Friday, where she stayed for several hours before being sent to Ma Tau Kok Immigration Detention Centre waiting for repatriation.
Chuang Shuk-kwan, Centre for Health Protection's head of communicable disease branch said the woman developed a sore throat on Friday and suspected she had contracted the virus at the hotel.
She said the woman reported arriving at the SAR in August and has been mostly staying at the hotel but police is investigating her whereabouts to confirm such information.
Since she had been taken to a police station and two detention centers, inmates who had shared the same cells with her would be classified as close contacts, together with several immigration officers who did her bodysearch and took her to showers.
Less than 10 preliminary positive patients are waiting for confirmation, including a 26-year-old woman who went to a staycation at Seaview Holiday Resort at Silver Mine Bay with seven friends last week.
A male friend, 26, who also joined to the staycation between October 25 and last Tuesday also deveoped symptoms and tested preliminary positive at a hospital.
The woman's 15-year-old male relative studying at Fanling Lutheran Secondary School is also a preliminary positive patient. Despite living in different houses in Tai Po's Wai Tau Tsuen, the teenager last Tuesday went to the woman's home, when they chatted and ate together.
