Quarantine for Hong Kong building's residents after 1st locally acquired variant case

HONG KONG • Hong Kong will quarantine residents of a roughly 400-unit apartment building for 21 days after a person was found with what the government called the first locally acquired case of a Covid-19 variant.

Dr Ronald Lam, controller of the government's Centre for Health Protection, said on Thursday night that the source of the person's infection remained unknown, and that preliminary test results showed the presence of the variant N501Y, which was first found in South Africa, and a mutation, E484K, which may help the pathogen resist vaccines and antibody treatments.

The infected person was a 39-year-old domestic helper living in a building in the Caribbean Coast complex in the Tung Chung neighbourhood, the government said. A 10-month-old baby who lived with her was also infected, it said.

All foreign domestic helpers in Hong Kong will need to be tested for Covid-19 by May 9, Food and Health Secretary Sophia Chan said at an evening briefing yesterday. Exemptions will apply to helpers who have completed two vaccine doses at least 14 days prior.

Domestic helpers will be required to be vaccinated in order to renew their contracts, officials said.

The building was locked down starting Thursday night. All residents were required to take Covid-19 tests, and will be taken to serve their three-week quarantine in government centres even if they test negative.

"Given it is the first locally infected case in the community involving mutant strains and it is also transmitted to one of the family members, we think the situation is very grim," Dr Lam said. "We have to conduct a series of measures for prevention and control."

Meanwhile Hong Kong will stop allowing passenger flights from Nepal, where infections are surging, to land at its airport from today.

The Himalayan country reported 4,928 new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, its third highest in a single day.

In order to break the chain of infections, the Nepali government has enforced a lockdown in Kathmandu Valley for two weeks and a similar measure has been enforced in many other areas.

BLOOMBERG, XINHUA