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Saturday, Feb 22, 2025
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Five-year-old fighting for life as the city counts 5,308 Covid cases
Health authorities urged parents to vaccinate their children with a five-year-old girl infected with Covid now fighting for her life in the intensive care unit, as Hong Kong reported 5,308 new cases on Saturday.
Among the cases logged today, 5,148 were locally transmitted, including 1,839 confirmed via PCR tests and 3,309 verified positive RAT test results. Chuang Shuk-kwan from the Centre for Health Protection also reported 160 imported cases – 26 identified at the airport, 95 in quarantine hotels, and 39 in local communities.
Chuang added that Omicron subvariants BA.4 or BA.5 are now taking up to 19 percent of the local cases and cited data from the World Health Organization (WHO) that the BA.5 subvariant may become the prominent Covid strain in Hong Kong.
As for the five-year-old girl, she tested positive on Friday and had a fever. Her condition deteriorated quickly after being rushed to Tuen Mun Hospital’s emergency room. She is now in the children’s intensive care unit and doesn’t suffer from any other illnesses.
Health authorities have yet to confirm the specific Covid variant the girl was infected with and appealed to citizens not to hesitate and to get their kids vaccinated as soon as possible.
The call for vaccination echoed that given by the health minister Lo Chung-mau on this morning’s radio program as he said that the vaccination rate for toddlers under the age of three is not ideal.
Earlier the government relaxed the age threshold for the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine so that youngsters aged six months to three years can also get the jabs.
Lo continued that the dosage of BioNTech vaccine for toddlers is different from that for adults as the pharmaceutical company has to develop new formulas and the government has to make the purchase again.
Two more elderly homes and another care center for the disabled were hit by Covid, while no school suspended classes for a week today.
Gladys Kwan Wai-man, Hospital Authority’s chief manager for clinical effectiveness and technology management, reported three new related deaths involving three women aged 85 to 91.
The three deceased patients suffered from high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney disease, and other chronic diseases. The 91-year-old woman had received her fourth Covid jab while another was unvaccinated.
Kwan said the authority will allocate the beds and manpower with the surging cases and may adjust non-emergency hospital services in the future if the infection tally continues to rise.
Public hospitals and treatment facilities are now housing 1,604 Covid patients. Among them, 32 are in critical condition, 25 are in serious condition, and 11 are in hospital intensive care units. In the past 24 hours, 178 patients have recovered from Covid, and 144 of them have been discharged.
Chuang added that Omicron subvariants BA.4 or BA.5 are now taking up to 19 percent of the local cases and cited data from the World Health Organization (WHO) that the BA.5 subvariant may become the prominent Covid strain in Hong Kong.
As for the five-year-old girl, she tested positive on Friday and had a fever. Her condition deteriorated quickly after being rushed to Tuen Mun Hospital’s emergency room. She is now in the children’s intensive care unit and doesn’t suffer from any other illnesses.
Health authorities have yet to confirm the specific Covid variant the girl was infected with and appealed to citizens not to hesitate and to get their kids vaccinated as soon as possible.
The call for vaccination echoed that given by the health minister Lo Chung-mau on this morning’s radio program as he said that the vaccination rate for toddlers under the age of three is not ideal.
Earlier the government relaxed the age threshold for the Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine so that youngsters aged six months to three years can also get the jabs.
Lo continued that the dosage of BioNTech vaccine for toddlers is different from that for adults as the pharmaceutical company has to develop new formulas and the government has to make the purchase again.
Two more elderly homes and another care center for the disabled were hit by Covid, while no school suspended classes for a week today.
Gladys Kwan Wai-man, Hospital Authority’s chief manager for clinical effectiveness and technology management, reported three new related deaths involving three women aged 85 to 91.
The three deceased patients suffered from high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney disease, and other chronic diseases. The 91-year-old woman had received her fourth Covid jab while another was unvaccinated.
Kwan said the authority will allocate the beds and manpower with the surging cases and may adjust non-emergency hospital services in the future if the infection tally continues to rise.
Public hospitals and treatment facilities are now housing 1,604 Covid patients. Among them, 32 are in critical condition, 25 are in serious condition, and 11 are in hospital intensive care units. In the past 24 hours, 178 patients have recovered from Covid, and 144 of them have been discharged.
