Double mutant in HK...
[Coronavirus: quarantine for hundreds after Hong Kong records first untraceable local case involving Covid-19 mutated strain, health officials warn of ‘grim situation’ | South China Morning Post
Hundreds of occupants of a 52-storey residential block in Tung Chung have been ordered into quarantine in Hong Kong’s biggest such operation after one of them was confirmed to have contracted a mutated strain of Covid-19 from an unknown source locally for the first time in the city.
Health officials said the patient was a 39-year-old domestic helper from the Philippines, and her infection carried the
N501Y and E484K mutations. Both types were found in more infectious strains first identified in South Africa and Brazil, and further sequencing would be needed to determine the variant.
The woman had not travelled outside the city since arriving in 2019, Dr Ronald Lam Man-kin, controller of the Centre for Health Protection, said, raising fears of the strain already spreading in the community.
Her employer’s 10-month-old daughter had also tested positive and genetic analysis was being carried out to see which strain she had.
“For this case, we have not been able to trace the source. … As it is the first locally contracted case involving a variant and one of the family members was also infected, we think the situation is very grim,” Lam said.