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Coronavirus pandemic
Hong KongHealth & Environment

Hong Kong third wave: health officials race to find 32 domestic helpers linked to Covid-19 case, as city confirms 85 new infections and death toll rises

  • Job-seeking maid earlier confirmed as infected recently shared accommodation with 32 other helpers
  • Asian migrants group appeals to Hongkongers not to use the episode to discriminate against city’s 400,000 helpers

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Health authorities are trying to trace the many contacts of a job-seeking domestic helper earlier confirmed as infected with the coronavirus. Photo: Felix Wong
Phila Siu,Gigi ChoyandLilian Cheng
Health officials are scrambling to locate at-risk Hong Kong households after a job-seeking domestic helper confirmed as infected with the coronavirus shared accommodation within the last fortnight with 32 other foreign maids.
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The track-and-trace operation was revealed on Wednesday as an 86-year-old resident of the Cornwall Elderly’s Home in Tuen Mun became Hong Kong’s latest Covid-19 fatality and the city marked its third straight day of fewer than 100 infections, with 85 new cases.

Concerned that more infections linked to the Indonesian maid case could follow, Chuang Shuk-kwan, from the Centre for Health Protection, said at a press conference: “We are a bit worried because we have not found the source [of infection] for this case yet.”

Eni Lestari, a spokeswoman for the Asian Migrants Coordinating Body, appealed to Hongkongers not to use this episode to discriminate against the city’s 400,000 helpers.

The new infections during Hong Kong’s third wave of Covid-19 have pushed the city’s confirmed tally to 3,754, with 43 deaths. An 86-year-old man who returned a preliminarily positive reading for the coronavirus also died in hospital.

Of Wednesday’s case count, 82 were locally transmitted, and among those, 33 had so far not been traced. Three were imported cases.

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