Two years after the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the Omicron variant virus is still breaking out in many districts recently. The Chief Executive, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, told reporters this evening (14th) that Hong Kong's anti-epidemic work was doing well, and the cumulative number of infections was more than 13,000 countries and regions in the world. few.
She said that the epidemic in Hong Kong is still not under control, and the risk of outbreak still exists, and listed the four most worried risks at present.
Lin Zheng said that when he announced the tightening of social distancing measures last week, he had predicted that the Omicron epidemic would develop rapidly, and announced the epidemic prevention measures on the 14th, and today is the 8th day, so he held a press conference to explain the situation of the past 7 days.
Carrie Lam said that the epidemic situation in Hong Kong in the past two years has been better than that of 175 countries and regions in the world, but there are four hidden worries at present.
(Photo by Zhang Haowei)
Hong Kong has been fighting the epidemic for two years. Carrie Lam said that there are not many local infections, with a total of 13,025 infections, ranking behind 175 countries or regions, and the death toll of about 2 million people in Hong Kong is not high.
However, she said that the Omicron variant virus is highly contagious and has replaced Delta as the mainstream virus, and the government will continue to be vigilant and dare not relax.
Looking back on the recent epidemic, only supermarket tally clerks have no source
Looking back on the Hong Kong epidemic in the past period of time, Lam Cheng pointed out that the first confirmed case of Omicron appeared in the Wangyuelou group on December 28. When the Tuen Mun surveyor's case occurred, it was a case of unknown origin, and later it was reported by the Health and Epidemic Prevention Center of the Department of Health. After investigation, it was discovered that Lu Tianyuan was connected to a number of cases.
She said that in the past week, the number of imported cases has dropped from 184 to 141. Yesterday, there were only more than 200 inbound passengers at the airport. It is expected that the number of imported cases will decrease accordingly.
However, Carrie Lam pointed out that the number of imported cases is still increasing. So far, the CHP has not found the transmission chain of the supermarket tally staff. Although the genetic sequence is known to be related to the flight attendant group, no connection has been found. It is a local case. , so it needs attention.
Doing 1.1 million tests in a week Carrie Lam: Fight with Omicron fast
Looking back at the past week, Lam said that 1.1 million nucleic acid tests were conducted at 460 locations in Hong Kong, and 30 containment operations were carried out.
Regarding the recent large-scale testing in Tuen Mun, Lam said that he is "willing to do all the tests", and any citizen can do it if they want.
Lam Cheng said that a total of more than 47 million people went to the quarantine center for quarantine. She apologized on behalf of the SAR government for some citizens who said they had an unpleasant experience during the process or that the waiting time was long. She also pointed out that the government must fight Omicron quickly.
The government announced a series of measures last week. Carrie Lam said that it seems that there have been results. At present, there is only one local confirmed case of unknown origin, that is, a supermarket tally clerk. No large-scale outbreak has been seen so far.
Referring to the situation in other places, as soon as Omicron broke out, the number of cases would increase exponentially, but Hong Kong has not seen it for the time being. Carrie Lam said this is a good phenomenon.
She said that this is because 60% of the cases were found in the quarantine center, which shows that the measures to send high-risk individuals to the quarantine center are effective in reducing the risk of transmission.
At the same time, the government's measures have reduced the flow of people in the market by 30%, which is the result that the government wants to see.
There was a confirmed case in the East Asia Pharmacy of Ai Ding Shopping Center in Tuen Mun. In order to avoid further development of the transmission chain, the authorities stipulated that people who have entered and exited the shopping mall since December 27 last year must undergo compulsory testing.
At 9:00 pm on January 13, 2022, although there are still restaurants in Aiding Mall, there are no customers other than takeaways.
(Photo by Liao Yanxiong)
More than one super-spreader worries that there are still many asymptomatic people in the community
However, Lam said the epidemic is still not under control and the risk of a virus outbreak still exists, and listed four risks that worried them.
The first is that there have been two consecutive cases of vertical transmission of Omicron in buildings, and the epidemic can appear very fast.
The second is that there are obviously more than one super-spreader in the current two case groups.
The third is that some cases have not been vaccinated and spread to the sixth generation. There are also confirmed cases who have symptoms but still do not go for testing, and even go to the community to become an invisible transmission chain, so there is an incident of large-scale testing in Tuen Mun.
Finally, the hospital admissions of the Hospital Authority show that 30% of the cases are asymptomatic, and as many as 70% have symptoms. This is inconsistent with overseas experience. The government is worried that more asymptomatic people are still circulating in the community.
Omicron｜The source of the cabin cleaners is that there is no source of imported cases in the United States, only supermarket tally staff Penny's Bay Quarantine Center arranges chaos 60 people leave one to two days later than the quarantine order, the department apologizes