Lock down HK

A citywide lockdown should be "actively considered" to control the severe fifth wave, says government adviser Gabriel Leung.

Leung, dean of University of Hong Kong's faculty of medicine, made the remark as HKU researchers found that current social distancing measures can only curb the spread by 77 percent as they reduce the instantaneous effective reproductive number to 1.5. This means every infection can spread to 1.5 people.

The researchers estimated that the city will experience the peak of the current wave in mid to late March and predict that there will be 28,000 infections daily - including 11,000 symptomatic cases and 468 hospitalizations and around 100,000 people will have to be isolated.

There could be 954 deaths by mid-June if the measures remain unchanged.

Leung said the outbreak could be under control if the instantaneous effective reproductive number is reduced to under 1 since the number of infections will then go down.

Taking reference from Shanghai's experience in early 2020, Leung said if a citywide lockdown is imposed in Hong Kong for two or three months, this could cut the transmission rate by 85 percent. The number of deaths by mid-June could then be reduced to 115 and so the public health service would not collapse.

"What we need is to really reduce cross-infections and the sure way of doing that is to reduce mobility and mixing," Leung said in a news conference yesterday.

"You need to sustain that for as long as you need to bring the number of infected seeds or transmission chains in the community down to such a level that they will fade away naturally."

Leung, however, said he would not comment on the feasibility of a lockdown as he is a scientist who has not been in politics for 10 years.

Leung suggested that people take a rapid Covid test themselves every two days for one to two months, while medical staff and workers at elderly care homes should get daily tests.

Another health expert, Kwok Kin-on, said Hong Kong may see up to 5,000 daily cases in five days.

The assistant professor at Chinese University's school of public health and primary care said on radio that the current single-day infection record - 1,161 on Wednesday - only reflected last Thursday's situation.

"It takes around four days for an Omicron infection to show symptoms and another three days before a case could be confirmed," Kwok said. "That means from February 10 to 16, the number of new cases will probably continue to rise."

He noted that on February 2, each patient infected 1.8 people. And by February 9 there were 1,100 cases.

"We can expect 2,000 to 5,000 infections in the coming days," he said.

Kwok added that, therefore, the effects of the new stringent measures implemented yesterday will be reflected in the caseload from next Thursday.

But Kwok remains optimistic and believes the outbreak will reach a peak at the end of this month at the earliest if people comply with mandatory test notices and get jabbed as soon as possible.

sophie.hui@singtaonewscorp.com