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

The Centre for Health Protection today said it is investigating 19 additional COVID-19 cases, of which 11 are locally transmitted and eight are imported.

At a press briefing this afternoon, the centre’s Communicable Disease Branch Head Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan said three of the new cases were detected through the Universal Community Testing Programme.

Two of them are family members, one of whom had contact with the patient of a previously confirmed case.

“We noted that the patient of case 4946 recalled that he had dinner with a previous case and another friend. After we interviewed him, we retrospectively interviewed the patient of the previous case and noted that they did have dinner together.

“This is an inherent problem and difficulty we encounter during contact tracing because we need the patient to recall as much as possible the details and movements during the preceding 14 days.”

The remaining case detected by the programme is a foreign domestic helper.

Dr Chuang reminded members of the public to stay vigilant even though the number of new cases detected by the programme is not very high.

“The proportion of new cases detected is not very high, which to me is a good thing.

“This signifies that there are not many silent carriers or infections in the community, but it also proves that there is indeed some cases in the community, so we have to be vigilant to keep up our personal hygiene and social distancing measures as much as possible to prevent further spread in the community.”

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