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

The Centre for Health Protection today said it is investigating a new COVID-19 case that involves a patient who works at the Hong Kong International Airport and will require the testing of 69 people as a precaution.

The centre’s Communicable Disease Branch Head Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan explained at a press briefing that contact tracing is underway since the 47-year-old woman came into contact with numerous people in her job as a Virgin Atlantic ground staff.

“For this case, we identified a few close contacts and will put them under quarantine, but as she works in the airport and has quite a number of colleagues - not working in such close contact with her - there may still be a risk of silent transmission, you never know.

“We will try to trace all her co-workers, including those who are frontline workers that amount to around 69 people, we will test them and check whether they still have any active infection. So if there is, we will trace further and put them under quarantine and so on.”

Dr Chuang added that this example and other locally acquired COVID-19 cases suggest that there are still infected people, silent carriers, who do not have symptoms but are spreading the virus in the city.

“The detection of locally acquired cases reflects that there is some silent transmission in the community. Whether it is large scale or small scale, it depends on our surveillance system and also our further tracing of the cases, contact tracing.”

There are altogether two cases confirmed, with another as an imported case. It involves a 35-year-old man returning from the UK. He was asymptomatic and was under compulsory home quarantine.

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