HK sees 48 new virus cases in a single day

HK sees 48 new virus cases in a single day

Timmy Sung reports

The number of new coronavirus cases spiked dramatically in Hong Kong on Friday, with authorities saying 48 people have now been added to the list.



The majority of the new patients, 36 of them, had recently been overseas, in Europe and across Asia. Some of the others are close contacts of coronavirus patients.



A taxi driver is one of those who have come down with the illness. He hadn't been out of Hong Kong recently, but was picking up passengers from the airport on a daily basis. He told officials he always wore a mask, but that some of his passengers didn't.



Eight of the new patients are students who have just returned from overseas, half of them from the UK. A foreign domestic helper who has just arrived in the city is another of the patients.



A member of the Hong Kong karate team, Tsang Yee-ting, has also been infected, after her teammate Lee Chun-ho tested positive earlier. They had been in France for training before returning to Hong Kong.



The youngest of the new victims is a four-year-old girl whose father is believed to have caught the virus during a trip to London. The girl did not exhibit any symptoms, but the virus showed up in tests.



The sudden surge in the numbers took the total tally of Covid-19 cases in Hong Kong to 256.