Impact of Covid-19 ‘milder' in Hong Kong despite 26 deaths in past 4 weeks: expert
The overall impact of the Covid-19 virus on Hong Kong is becoming milder despite the 26 fatalities recorded over the past four weeks, a leading health expert has said, while urging high-risk groups to get vaccinated and receive timely booster jabs to reduce the risk of severe illness and death.
Professor Lau Yu-lung, chairman of the government's Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases and paediatrics professor at the University of Hong Kong, said on Thursday that while recent data indicated a clear upwards trend in Covid-19 cases, the consequences for individuals and society appeared less severe than in 2023 and 2024.
'The sewage monitoring system for the eighteenth week [of the year] showed nearly 700,000 gene copies per litre,' he told a radio show, referencing data from the Centre for Health Protection's sewage surveillance system.
'Looking back at March 2024, the highest peak was around 400,000. This objective data, which isn't reliant on testing rates, suggests that community transmission is indeed higher now than the peak in 2024.'
But Lau stressed that the number of severe cases and deaths had not followed the same upward trajectory.
'If we look at the serious cases and compare them, the figures for 2025 are lower than the previous year,' he said.
Authorities earlier revealed the city had recorded 75 severe adult cases of Covid-19 and 26 deaths in the past four weeks, exceeding the previous four-week period.
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