Virus-free man hospitalised instead of infected son

Virus-free man hospitalised instead of infected son

Damon Pang reports

Health officials said on Tuesday that officials had mixed up two family members and had taken a man to hospital to be isolated instead of his son who was the one who had actually tested positive for Covid-19.



The blunder was revealed at the Centre For Health Protection's daily briefing on the coronavirus crisis, where officials announced another 21 confirmed cases, bringing the city's total so far to 935.



A Nepali man had tested positive for coronavirus on Monday while in a quarantine centre. He had been taken there with his father and another relative because they were considered to be close contacts of a confirmed case.



But the son was left in the centre while his father was mistakenly taken to hospital in his place. The dad spent several hours in an isolation ward overnight.



The centre's chief, Wong Ka-hing, said the mistake was not down to a switching of lab results, which was responsible for a previous mix-up.



"Concerning people with Nepali names, they look quite similar to us," he explained.



Wong said they had apologised to the family for the confusion, and arrangements had been made to take the son to hospital to be isolated, and his father back to the quarantine centre.



Meanwhile, Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan who heads the centre's Communicable Disease Branch said Hong Kong's 21 latest patients are 12 males and nine females, aged 16 to 61.



Twelve had been overseas recently.



Three of the nine people with no travel history are linked to a Marks & Spencer karaoke party cluster and are colleagues of a cashier who was confirmed to have Covid-19 on Monday.



Another new patient is linked to a separate cluster of cases involving a karaoke session.



Officials also said that an 82-year-old man who had been admitted to Pok Oi Hospital died on Tuesday morning.



The man was on a ward which had previously had two Covid-19 patients and he had tested negative for the virus.



A further test was being carried out to double check that he had not been infected.