First-time infections spur rebound

Jane Cheung

Many Hongkongers who managed to avoid Covid during the pandemic are being hit by the infection as community cases rebound, private doctor Edmund Lam Wing-wo says, as the World Health Organization announced on Friday the global health emergency is officially over.

Lam, who runs a clinic in Kennedy Town, told The Standard that Covid-19 infections have surged over the past three weeks, and he has been seeing up to 30 patients a day. That is a big leap from early last month, when he had 10 or less cases a day, or from March when just one or two Covid patients showed up daily at his clinic.

"Many of them have never been infected. For those who caught the coronavirus again, 80 percent had their last infection or last Covid jab more than six months ago," Lam said.

Patients mostly suffer mild symptoms of fever, sore throat and cough.

"Some of them cough so much that they couldn't sleep, so they came for medication," he said. "Overall, only a handful of elderly patients with low spirits, or low blood oxygen, have been referred to hospitals.

"Generally speaking, those fully jabbed, or catching Covid again have milder symptoms."

Lam said half of the patients he saw were 60 or older, while the younger ones mostly consulted the clinic for medical certification.

"Some had to come two to three times for extended sick leave because it takes them 10 days to test negative," he said.

"But they can still fight the infection with their own immunity and I usually don't prescribe oral Covid drugs to those 59 years old and below," Lam added, referring to the Hospital Authority's guideline.

"Patients who are not elderly, have no chronic disease like diabetes, coronary diseases, or other high risk factors need not worry. They can recover from the symptoms with their own antibodies in two to three days."

Lam said most of the patients had tested positive in rapid tests at home.

"They'd tell us in advance that they've tested positive, so we can arrange for them to come when there are fewer patients, and ask them to wait in a designated area in the clinic," he said.

"Some people thought they had already contracted Covid before and it's just a cold this time."

He said he runs both flu and Covid rapid tests on patients with respiratory disease symptoms so they can determine the infection in 10 minutes.

Lam said he had not observed a rising infection trend among children, but most of the kids falling sick have contracted the coronavirus from their family.

Yesterday the Centre for Health Protection reported 11 Covid-related deaths and 518 positive PCR Covid results, but added that the tally does not reflect all cases in the community.

On Friday, the WHO announced Covid is no longer a global health emergency, three years after it was declared the highest level of alert.