“The treatment centre of AsiaWorld-Expo will be reopened this evening with around 200 health care staff and 200 beds for Covid patients, since the pressure of the health service of increasing cases of patients,” chief manager of the Hospital Authority Larry Lee Lap-yip said.

He added that AsiaWorld-Expo would primarily accept patients including the elderly who live alone, patients in complicated conditions and transferred from Penny Bay quarantine centre, and patients who are already in stable conditions from public hospitals.

New cases were reported in 13 more care homes for the elderly and the disabled, said Albert Au Ka-wing, Principal Medical and Health Officer of the Communicable Disease Branch of the Centre for Health Protection of the Department of Health.

Among the five death cases - four men and one woman aged between 63 to 96, two are suspected to be infected by an outbreak in care homes, and the three remaining recorded not receiving the full three doses of Covid vaccines.

Besides, 160 cases reported today were from 83 schools, causing 7 of them to need to suspend their classes, said Au.

Public hospitals now accommodate over 2,100 Covid-19 patients, with 297 newly admitted and 135 more patients aged under 11.