Coronavirus | 4th Omicron case detected in HK

Hong Kong's health authorities on Wednesday (Dec. 1) confirmed that a previously found COVID-19 patient carried the Omicron variant, which is the fourth in the city.

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) announced that a 38-year-old male patient who arrived in HK from Qatar on flight QR818 on Nov. 24 for transit.

The patient tested positive in a pre-departure test on Nov. 27 at the restricted area in HK International Airport. He had not received COVID-19 vaccination and had been asymptomatic. He tested positive on Nov. 27 for antibody after admission and the CT values for the three tests after admission are 30-36. The whole genome sequencing confirmed that the case carried the Omicron variant.

Further epidemiological investigations revealed that the patient travelled from Papua New Guinea to Nigeria on Nov. 15 and subsequently traveled from Qatar to HK.

There are so far four cases involving Omicron in HK. Two cases are related to South Africa and two cases are related to Nigeria.

Besides, HK reported three new cases on Wednesday, all of which were imported. 

One of the cases involved a mutant strain while the mutation test results of the remaining two cases are pending. The patients comprise three females, aged 5 to 61. All of them arrived in Hong Kong from Group A specified places (high-risk).

A total of 48 cases have been reported in the past 14 days (November 17 to 30) and all of them are imported cases.