Covid-19 gets 15 percent of Hong Kong's population: David Hui

Respiratory expert David Hui Shu-cheong believed 15 percent of Hong Kong's 7.5 million population have already been infected with Covid-19, and expected the fifth wave to peak in mid-March.

Speaking on a radio program on Saturday, Hui said the numbers were deduced based on the 15 to 20 percent positive result rate detected in the recent lockdown declared at buildings throughout the city, and expected the daily caseload to climb continuously.

He also referred to other mathematics modelings conducted by other experts and predicted the infection numbers to reach the ceiling by mid-March and remain at top levels for a while.

He continued that concentrating all Covid patients in one single hospital may not work and most public hospitals have now admitted Covid patients into their general wards, giving the example of Prince of Wales Hospital in Sha Tin, where there are only two general wards for non-Covid patients.

He called on private hospitals to help treating non-Covid patients to make more room for public hospitals as well.

On another note, he urged the government to consider thoroughly when to impose the citywide mass testing arrangement, adding that it is best not conducted at the peak of the pandemic.

Hui continued that the best time for such arrangement would be the early stages of the pandemic as authorities could cut off transmission chains in the communities as soon as possible.

He advised the government to wait until the infection numbers decline to lower levels as Hong Kong is now hit by a full-scale outbreak and there are not enough isolation facilities.

Hui noted that it would never be enough no matter how many isolation facilities the government build as the number of patients detected in mass testing will definitely exceed the number of units these facilities can provide.

He recommended sending priority groups including elderly people and chronic disease patients to hospitals first, and those who can't undergo home quarantine like partition flat tenants to isolation facilities.