(To watch the whole press briefing with sign language interpretation, click here.)

The Centre for Health Protection today reported a confirmed case of COVID-19 involving a 38-year-old woman who was among the Hong Kong residents brought back from Hubei Province on a chartered flight.

While briefing the media on the city’s latest COVID-19 situation, the centre’s Communicable Disease Branch Head Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan said the risk of other people being infected will be low as the Government implemented measures to prevent cross infection throughout the entire return trip.

“I think this is the first (confirmed) case among those Wuhan returnees to Hong Kong. During their return, for the whole journey, all of the infection control measures had been in place to prevent any cross infection.

“As far as I understand, the risk to other returnees will be very low.”

Dr Chuang also responded to questions concerning the contact tracing of case a confimed case.

The COVID-19 patient, identified as the husband of the 105th case, did not have a travel history and showed no virus symptoms even though his saliva tested positive on March 6.

“As he did not have any symptoms, we took the first date, when he had a positive saliva (test), to be the onset date. It is not just for contact tracing purposes.

“So we took March 4 and 5, those people who had contact with him, as possible close contacts. But during those two days he did not travel a lot, except for driving his wife to the Violet Peel General Out-patient Clinic. He mainly stayed at home.

“On March 5 we already transferred him to the quarantine centre. So there are not many other close contacts to be traced.”

Meanwhile, the centre is investigating an additional case of COVID-19, raising the number of confirmed cases in Hong Kong to 109.

The patient is a 73-year-old woman who is member of the same tour group as the two patients of the 105th and 107th cases confirmed on March 4 and 6.

She lives at Swiss Towers in Tai Hang. She travelled with her husband to India from February 4 to 19.

She was asymptomatic before she attended Hong Kong Sanatorium & Hospital yesterday where her respiratory sample tested preliminary positive for COVID-19.

She was sent to Queen Mary Hospital for treatment on the same day. Upon further testing today, her respiratory sample tested positive for the virus.

Her husband and domestic helper who live with her are asymptomatic and will be arranged for quarantine.

For information and health advice on COVID-19, visit the Government's dedicated webpage.