Hong Kong urged to allow elderly travellers to quarantine at home after veteran actor Kenneth Tsang dies at quarantine hotel
- Health official says actor Kenneth Tsang did not respond after contractors knocked on his door for random Covid-19 test
- Microbiologist Dr Ho Pak-leung says government could consider allowing those with special needs to quarantine at home under certain conditions after actor’s death
Elderly travellers should be allowed to isolate at home if certain conditions are met, a leading health expert has said, after 87-year-old veteran Hong Kong actor Kenneth Tsang Kong died while undergoing quarantine at a Kowloon hotel.
Tsang’s family declined to say whether he was given timely medical help at the hotel, with the actor’s daughter Musette Tsang adding the focus was on making funeral arrangements.
“There were not many things the hotel could do … there could be a lot of emergencies everyone needs to respond to,” she said after identifying her father’s body at the public mortuary in Kwai Chung. “We don’t need to make too many comments.”
The celebrated actor was found dead in his room in the Kowloon Hotel on Nathan Road on Wednesday while undergoing quarantine after a trip to Singapore. He had received three doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, sources said.
Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch at the Centre for Health Protection, on Thursday said the coroner’s preliminary investigation found no trace of Covid-19. She added the actor also tested negative during his stay at the hotel.
The health official said personnel contracted to carry out random polymerase chain reaction tests during travellers’ third day after arriving in the city had knocked on Tsang’s door and received no answer. They then contacted hotel staff to follow up.
Tsang’s ex-wife reportedly said he had asked his family for medicine and food the day before he died.
