Housing Department staff members check whether a resident of Yat Kwai House, Kwai Chung Estate had been tested for COVID-19 on Jan 19, 2022. (PHOTO / HKSAR GOVERNMENT)

HONG KONG — A three-day restriction order has been placed at Yat Kwai House of Kwai Chung Estate in Hong Kong, where at least 16 people have tested positive to COVID-19 in a superspreading event.

The 2,500 people living in the building have to undergo daily screening and can only go out with a negative result.

The 16 infected people are from 11 families living on different floors and a security guard working in the block. Their units face different directions and no vertical transmission was suspected after an inspection led by microbiologist and government advisor Yuen Kwok-yung on Thursday evening.

READ MORE: One preliminary COVID-19 case detected in Kwai Chung testing

The health authorities had announced two confirmed cases and three preliminary positive cases in the building in the press briefing on Thursday. More testing results came out by midnight.

The outbreak in Hong Kong has come to a very difficult stage.

Yuen Kwok-yung, Govt pandemic advisor

The superspreading event traces back to the Pakistani housewife tested positive after her quarantine at the Silka Seaview Hotel in Yau Ma Tei, according to Albert Au Ka-wing of the Centre for Health Protection (CHP).

The woman’s husband, who sells goods discarded in garbage rooms, was believed to have brought the virus to the building when visiting on Jan 13. The infected security guard and cleaners then further spread it.

Au said that the husband did not disclose his visits to Yat Kwai House and two other buildings in Kwai Chung Estate until genome sequencing pointed to a link. Investigation is ongoing to determine if he had covered up intentionally.

Residents in the other two buildings — Luk Kwai House and Chin Kwai House — have also undergone screening. So far, no infection has been found.

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Some 10 cleaners who have worked in the three buildings have been sent into quarantine.

Au also appealed to people who have visited Nam Cheong Street, where the husband has hawked his goods, to get tested.

'VERY DIFFICULT STAGE'

Yuen urged the 2,500 residents in Yat Kwai House to stay home as much as possible for three days, though no evacuation has been ordered.

“To be frank, there are not enough quarantine centers in Hong Kong for the time being,” he said, adding that the government does not have sufficient resources to deliver food and necessities to all households.

Yuen said the government is working on increasing quarantine facilities to accommodate all close contacts of infected patients.

While the government deploys more manpower for multi-layer contact tracing, it is time to “consider other options,” he said. “The outbreak in Hong Kong has come to a very difficult stage.”

Still, Hong Kong should make every effort at “dynamic Covid zero” in order to minimize the number of confirmed cases and hence deaths, Yuen stressed.