Home isolation for 11 HK officials after another guest tests positive

Eleven Hong Kong officials will isolate themselves at home using their leaves and undergo testing before resuming work after a 43-year-old woman at a party they had attended tested preliminary positive for COVID-19, a government spokesperson said on Sunday.

According to the Centre for Health Protection officials, the 11 officials were earlier exempted from quarantine after the test results of a 53-year-old preliminary-positive woman who attended the party from 6 pm to 8 pm turned out to be false positive.

More than 180 guests, including at least 14 government officials and 20 lawmakers, had attended a party thrown in Wan Chai on Jan 3 for Witman Hung Wai-man, a representative for Hong Kong at the Shenzhen Qianhai Authority.

The three other officials — Secretary for Home Affairs Caspar Tsui Ying-wai, Director of Immigration Au Ka-wang and the Political Assistant to the Secretary for Development Allen Fung Ying-lun — will continue to be quarantined in the Penny's Bay Quarantine Centre as close contacts of another guest who tested positive.

The officials can rejoin work only after all their test reports are negative. They will undergo testing on January 10, 15 and 22 in accordance with a Centre for Health Protection notice. 

After an investigation into the incident, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor will take appropriate action against the officials concerned, the spokesperson said.

In view of the looming outbreak of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, David Hui Shu-cheong, an infectious diseases expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, has, through a local radio show on Monday, urged the government to tighten pandemic control in a timely manner to minimize the flow of people.