HK’s Covid infections to stay high for weeks: experts

Medical experts on Monday said they expect the number of Covid-19 infections in Hong Kong to remain high for some weeks, with one saying the daily caseloads will probably only drop to around a thousand in late May.

Kwok Kin-on, public health and primary care assistant professor from the Chinese University, said their projection model suggests that up to five million people may eventually be infected in this wave of outbreak, with as many as 9,000 deaths.

He said on an RTHK programme that the daily tally is not expected to drop to around a thousand until late May or early June, and it will take another month or so for the number to fall to around a hundred.

“Our assessment has an assumption based on the ratio of people reporting their self-test results. According to figures in the United States and the United Kingdom, out of ten patients, only around three to four are identified,” said Kwok.

He also expressed concern that cases may rebound in the coming weeks, as people may start to get together more often due to fatigue with strict social-distancing restrictions.

Speaking on the same programme, a government advisor on vaccines, Lau Yu-lung, also said he expects the number of infections to stay high for weeks, despite authorities’ belief that this wave of outbreak has peaked.

The University of Hong Kong professor added it’s wrong for people to think getting infected is a better way than vaccination to acquire antibodies against the coronavirus because infection could cause death.