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

The Centre for Health Protection today said it is looking into how a man was sent to hospital for COVID-19 instead of his son who tested positive for the virus yesterday.

Centre for Health Protection Controller Dr Wong Ka-hing said at a press briefing that the case involved a Nepali man whose family was sent to a quarantine centre yesterday because they were close contacts of confirmed cases.

“The Department of Health has sent an apology to this family of three members. Actually they have been staying in same unit in the quarantine centre. Because we just got the information that the father was wrongly sent to the hospital, whereas the son (who tested) positive had stayed, that happened yesterday, so now we are rectifying the situation for both.”

Dr Wong noted that since the centre was only notified of the case yesterday, more time was needed to ascertain exactly what happened.

He added that other confinees staying at the same quarantine centre were unlikely to be affected. 

“We have sent an apology to the family and we will investigate how it happened. So it may be too early to tell the exact reason behind (it).

“But I do not think this particular incident will affect the other people who are staying in quarantine centre because the family itself stayed in a unit.”