Teenagers wearing face masks sit on a bench next to a cardboard with a victory sign at a park in Hong Kong, May 9, 2022, with a cardboard depicting a victory sign. Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the Centre for Health Protection, said in a news briefing that 33 of the new cases were imported while 251 were local infections.
She said 116 cases were confirmed by nucleic acid tests and 168 by rapid antigen tests. Saturday's figure is lower than the 298 infections logged on Friday, bringing the infection tally to 1,195, 116 during the fifth wave of the epidemic.
Chuang said 10 of the imported cases were detected at the airport, 22 found during quarantine and one confirmed during testing on the 12th day after the patient arrived in Hong Kong.
Three cases were detected at the airport on Cathay Pacific flight CX 288 from Frankfurt and two on Cathy flight CX 495 from Taipei.
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Chuang said that a 60-year-old woman from the United States also tested positive for the Omicron BA. The number of BA was increased by 4 subvariant at the airport. There were 4 subvariant cases in the city to three.
Chuang said that the 11 new cases at the Chinese restaurant Sky Cuisine in Sheung Wan involved a staff member and 10 customers, bringing the number of cases in the cluster to 41.
We have told them to suspend operations because we have to wait for test results. There were a large number of patrons infected. She said that we need to wait for ventilation testing and environmental test results before we give them the green light.
Chuang said the infected diners came from 15 families and occupied 17 of the 29 tables on the third floor.
She said environmental samples taken from the male toilet and the extractor fan in the female toilet also tested positive for the disease.
One of the patients in the cluster lived in West Terrace, Sai Wan Estate in Kennedy Town, where 22 cases had been found. Chuang said a full genome sequencing analysis is being conducted to find out if the outbreak in the restaurant is related to the cases in the estate.
She said that there were six new cases linked to the Billiards Center in Hung Hom, involving 2 staff and four customers who had played darts.
One of the infected staff members was assigned to the bar and prepared food and drinks for patrons, according to Chuang, adding that the cluster now had 12 cases.
Sara Ho, Hospital Authority Chief Manager, said at the same time that a 77-year-old female patient with COVID 19 died in the last 24 hours.
She said that 755 COVID 19 patients were being treated at 19 public hospitals, the North Lantau Hospital Hong Kong Infection Control Centre, and the AsiaWorld-Expo community treatment center.
Three were in serious serious condition and one was in critical condition in an intensive care unit, Ho added.