Hong Kong Shortens Covid Hospital Stays with Testing Change
- Patients must meet a lower threshold to get released from care
- Rule change comes as the city sees a surge of new infections
A medical worker wearing protective gear waits to take the temperature of people in an entrance of a hospital in Hong Kong.
Photographer: Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images
Hong Kong is accelerating the release of Covid-19 patients from the hospital as the city grapples with a growing number of infections that are taxing its health care facilities.
Patients will soon be discharged if they have two negative tests at least 24 hours apart or three tests that show they are no longer infectious as determined by a cycle threshold or CT count of 33 or higher, Hospital Authority Chief Manager Lau Ka-hin said at a daily briefing on Wednesday. That is a lower standard than the current rules, which have pushed the average hospital stay to 17 days, he said.