Residents to evacuate from Tai Po building after 3 cases confirmed

HONG KONG - Dozens of residents in six floors of a Tai Po building where three cases of coronavirus infections have been confirmed will be sent to quarantine centers for tests, the government said on Saturday.

This will be the second evacuation of residents of an affected housing estate since the outbreak of the epidemic in January. Earlier, more than 100 residents of one building in Cheung Hong Estate in Tsing Yi were evacuated and quarantined for several days after two people living in unit A07 on different floors were confirmed to have contracted the disease.

Meeting the press after inspecting Fu Heng Estate's Hang Tai building in Tai Po district, Controller of the Centre for Health Protection of the Department of Health Wong Ka-hing said those who need to be evacuated are residents living in units 13 and 14 from the 29th to 34th floor of the building.

The center will approach those who are living in the units on other floors to arrange for close monitoring and tests for the virus.

All the three infected patients live in the unit 13 of the building. A 59-year-old man who was confirmed on Saturday lives on the 34th floor while a couple who were confirmed after returning from a tour in Egypt live on the 32nd floor.

After moving into the quarantine centers, those who show symptoms will be sent to hospitals while the others will be tested for the virus.

Leading microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung said the case was not a copy of Amoy Gardens that saw a massive outbreak of SARS infection in 2003, nor is this a copy of Cheung Hong Estate.

Yuen estimated that the virus, which may have transmitted through gas vaporizing from feces, could infect people living in up to five different floors.