Health officials have confirmed that one more person has tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus, bringing the total number of cases in Hong Kong to 22, while two others have preliminarily tested positive but are awaiting final results.
Chuang Shuk-kwan, the head of the communicable disease branch of the Centre for Health Protection, said on Thursday that the latest confirmed case is a 55-year-old Hong Kong resident, and the wife of case number 21, a 56-year-old man who lives in Tsing Yi and was taken to Princess Margaret Hospital after developing a fever, cough, and sore throat.
Chuang noted that the couple had traveled to Tokyo from Jan. 28 to Feb. 1, and that case number 22 had recently gone to the city of Dongguan on the mainland for work, but had returned to Hong Kong on Jan. 17 — theoretically just outside of the 14-day incubation period.
The husband went to see a private doctor on Feb. 2, and then to Princess Margaret Hospital on Tuesday, Feb. 4 after falling ill.
Case 22 accompanied her husband to the hospital on Tuesday as she also was displaying mild symptoms, and on Wednesday — the same day her husband was confirmed to have the novel coronavirus — she returned to Princess Margaret Hospital via taxi.
“We’re not totally sure whether it was transmitted by her husband within the incubation period or both had common exposure locally,” Chuang said.
The couple had spent Lunar New Year socializing with family and friends, and authorities are now in the process of contacting them to see if a anyone else is showing any symptoms, Chuang added.
The news comes one day after Chief Executive Carrie Lam announced that starting from midnight on Saturday, all travelers arriving in Hong Kong from the mainland will be forced to undergo a 14-day quarantine before entering the city, regardless of their residency status.
