Hong Kong's confirmed COVID-19 cases rise to 126

All the members of a nine-people tour group from Hong Kong to Egypt might have been infected with COVID-19 virus, Hong Kong's Centre for Health Protection (CHP) said Wednesday afternoon, updating the total number of confirmed cases in Hong Kong to 126.

Six new cases were diagnosed with COVID-19 on Wednesday and three others were preliminarily tested positive, Head of the CHP's Communicable Disease Branch Chuang Shuk-kwan said at a daily press briefing.

Five of the newly confirmed cases and one of the preliminary positive cases involve six members of the tour group, which consisted of eight tourists and one guide and traveled to Egypt from Feb. 27 to March 7.

Together with the three members of the tour group who were diagnosed with COVID-19 on Tuesday, the whole group may have been infected by the virus, Chuang said.

One of the six confirmed cases involves a 22-year-old flight attendant who was working on the flight CX320 from Madrid, Spain and arrived in Hong Kong on March 8. A female passenger of the flight has been tested positive for COVID-19 virus earlier, and the flight attendant was traced as a contact of her.

The Controller of the CHP Wong Ka-hing said at the briefing that the COVID-19 epidemic situation is changing rapidly around the globe and Hong Kong has seen multiple imported cases recently. He again urged members of the public to consider delaying all non-essential travel outside Hong Kong.

Lau Ka-hin, chief manager for quality and standards of Hong Kong's Hospital Authority, reported at the briefing that two patients were discharged from the hospital after recovery on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cured COVID-19 cases to 66, while 57 COVID-19 patients remain hospitalized.