Five-day lockdown for Kwai Chung residential block, none to leave until next week

A five-day lockdown has been announced at Yat Kwai House, Kwai Chung Estate, by health authorities on Friday, and some 2,700 residents there will have to undergo home isolation and daily Covid testing until next Wednesday (Jan 26) morning. 

The announcement was made by Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Ciu-chee in a media session this afternoon, saying that a "super-spreading" situation may have occurred in the building and caused the surge in cases detected there. 

Due to the high infection risk, the government decided to lock the building down for five days, starting 6pm on Friday until the morning of next Wednesday (Jan 26), Chan said. Some 2,700 residents will have to undergo home isolation and do daily Covid testing. 

Edwin Tsui Lok-kin, controller of the Center for Health Protection, explained that the residents there need not evacuate as no structural faults were found in the building. That means the building remains a safe place for the residents to stay as it is unlikely that the virus could be spread via specific architectural problems. 

Tsui continued that the husband of the infected Pakistani woman had been to Yat Kwai House on January 13 and transmitted the coronavirus to a cleaner, who then spread the virus to different floors of the building. 

Meanwhile, Housing Department's assistant director for estate management Ian Luk Tsz-wai said the lockdown operation has begun, and officers will send meal boxes to residents starting at 7pm. Residents can also undergo testing at the mobile testing stations set up in the area beginning at 8pm. The stations will open until midnight.