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Hong's government news site has now confirmed earlier media reports of two more locally acquired coronavirus infections, bring to 4 the number of cases that appear to have been contracted locally.
Two new confirmed cases are local infections
February 4, 2020
Two new cases of new coronavirus infection have been diagnosed in Hong Kong, with a total of 17 cases. Zhang Zhujun, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases of the Department of Health Protection of the Department of Health, said that the two patients had no travel history in the past 14 days and were local infections. In addition, the two previous confirmed cases could not find the obvious cause, indicating that there was hidden or local transmission.
Zhang Zhujun briefed the latest situation of the case at a press conference today. He said that the 16th case was a 64-year-old lady who lives at No. 1 Changshan Street. She is the owner of a clothing store in Jordan Hengfeng Center and has no travel history.
The patient started coughing on January 23 and sought medical treatment from Jiabin Commercial Building. He had a fever on January 30 and consulted another doctor. He was admitted on February 1. She is now in worse condition and was transferred from Queen Elizabeth Hospital to Princess Margaret Hospital.
Patients have been to work on January 23, 24, 28, and 29. The staff of the Protection Center went to the patient's workplace today to conduct a field epidemiological survey and suggested that the shopping mall management office conduct a large cleaning and strengthen cleaning and disinfection. As the area is connected to nearby public places, staff of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department have assisted in cleaning.
As for the 17th case, the patient was a 60-year-old retired man living in Kwun Tong. He also had no travel history. He started having fever and feeling tired on January 22, and consulted four doctors successively from January 23 to 31. He began to feel asthma on January 30, and went to the Accident and Emergency Department of United Hospital and Tseung Kwan O Hospital the following day, and was subsequently admitted to the hospital.
Zhang Zhujun said that neither of the two new cases had travel history and the Protection Center is investigating the travel history of the patient's family. Preliminary information shows that the son of a 64-year-old female patient had previously traveled to Taiwan or Japan, but had not been to the Mainland. In both cases, family members and close contacts were sent to isolation centres for quarantine.
She said that together with the two previous cases of suspected local infection, so far a total of four confirmed cases could not be identified with obvious causes, indicating that there may be invisible transmission in the locality where no transmission chain could be found.
Zhang Zhujun said that studies have shown that viruses can stay in the environment for a period of time, which may be as long as several days. Therefore, the public should pay special attention to personal and home environmental hygiene. The government has launched a new interactive map of the local situation of coronaviruses for the public's reference to better understand the latest developments in the local epidemic situation.
The Protection Center has a special webpage that provides relevant information and health advice. It is updated online at 9 am and 6 pm daily to receive the latest information on reported cases, further improving the efficiency of issuing infection cases.
