Covid case consigns Hong Kong construction crew to quarantine

Ten construction workers in Hong Kong have been quarantined after one of their number tested positive for Covid-19.

The 22-year-old shared a room with nine others working on a site in Kai Tak, The South China Morning Post reports.  

The man was one of six new cases revealed by Hong Kong’s Centre for Health Protection (CHP) yesterday, and is thought to have been infected by local transmission; the other five had been travelling during the incubation period, including returnees from the UK, the newspaper said.

CHP investigators questioned the construction workers and found another of them feeling ill. They were all sent to quarantine centres.

Today the CHP said it was investigating 10 new cases, three of which appeared to have been transmitted locally. 

Also today, a 56-year-old man was sentenced to seven days imprisonment by the West Kowloon Magistrates Courts for violating compulsory quarantine regulations. 

Prosecutors said he left quarantine twice on 25 and 26 May without permission.

A second wave of infections in Hong Kong peaked on 30 July with 149 daily new cases, but that figure has since come down to single or low double digits.

Image: Hong Kongers in March 2020 (Andrii Makukha/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Further reading:

• Malaysia shut eight sites down for Covid non-compliance
• Manhunt in Malaysia as 145 workers flee quarantine
• Instant isolation rooms: Chinese firm prints quarantine pods for hospitals struggling with virus