Hong Kong faces a “third wave” of coronavirus infections, which experts say is related to the reduction of social distancing measures, and potentially a mutation that could make it more infectious.
For weeks, Hong Kong’s case numbers have been kept low in single digits every day, sometimes even zero. People had just dropped their guard and resumed daily activities, with the reopening of businesses and public spaces, when the third wave arrived, sending case numbers of up to several dozen a day.
Simplified restrictions: A large number of local cases have no epidemiological link to other cases, which means that “we do not know how these particular cases have acquired the infection,” said Professor Leo Poon, head of the Science Division of the University Public Health Laboratory. Hong Kong (HKU).
This suggests that the outbreak was caused by loosening of social distancing measures, Poon said.
The danger is especially high in restaurants when people remove their masks and are at risk of cross infection, said Ivan Hung, head of the HKU Division of Infectious Diseases.
The virus has mutated: The new mutation means the virus is now multiplying at a higher rate, Gabriel Leung, dean of the HKU medical school, said in a radio interview on Sunday.
Both Poon and Hung told CNN that the new mutation, located in the protein responsible for the virus that binds to human cells, makes it “more transmissible.” The mutation has made the new version “more suitable than the original virus,” Poon said.
A previous study of the mutation found it to be more transmissible, but it does not appear to make patients sicker.
We should not panic: There’s still a lot we don’t know, he said John Nicholls, Clinical Professor of Pathology at HKU.
For example, we know that the mutation has increased replication in cells by 30%, but it does not necessarily mean that the virus is 30% more transmissible. “We need to be cautious about it and do more sequences to see if the virus in Hong Kong is this ‘mutated’ virus,” Nicholls told CNN.
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