VARIANT PATIENT MAY FACE SECOND CHARGE
Prosecutors could hit 30-year-old man visiting from Dubai with additional offence to the one of providing false information to an authorised officer
Hong Kong’s first Covid-19 patient found locally with a mutated strain of the coronavirus was remanded in custody after appearing in court yesterday, and could be charged with a second count of providing false information to authorities tasked with tracing others in his infection cluster.
Syed Mohamed Rizvi – a 30-year-old engineer who flew in from Dubai in March – was charged with providing false information to an authorised officer. His 31-year-old female friend, whom he spent time with after completing 21 days of quarantine, was charged with failing to disclose details to an officer or authorities. The two were arrested on Saturday.
Prosecutors told Kowloon City Court yesterday they were considering laying an additional charge of providing false information to immigration officers, based on the account that Rizvi gave early this month of his movements in April.
Rizvi, who was discharged from hospital in late April, wore a face shield and a mask during the hearing, and the court was told he was no longer considered infectious. He was not represen
ted by a lawyer when he appeared in the morning before Principal Magistrate Ada Yim Shun-yee, who remanded him in custody.
After arriving from Dubai on March 19, Rizvi completed his compulsory hotel quarantine on April 8.
He tested positive in mid-April for the B.1.351 variant, which was first discovered in South Africa and is thought to be about 50 per cent more infectious than other variants in circulation.
Between April 9 and 16, while staying at a flat in the Parkes Building in Jordan, he visited several locations in the area and neighbouring Tsim Sha Tsui, according to health authorities.
Officials also said he went to the Citygate Outlets shopping centre and the Novotel Citygate hotel in Tung Chung, visited a Discovery Bay restaurant, and attended an April 13 gathering with the woman’s relatives at Hing Wah II Estate in Chai Wan.
Under the existing charge, Rizvi is accused of knowingly providing false information to a health official on April 16 by only mentioning he had visited Tsim Sha Tsui and Jordan from April 10 to 11 and stating that he had not attended any gatherings.
He also allegedly told an immigration officer in early May that he had stayed in the Jordan flat for most of April 12 and 13, only leaving to go to a supermarket.
It was only later that he informed the immigration officer he had attended the Chai Wan gathering, prosecutors said.
Rizvi’s case was adjourned to May 31 to give prosecutors time to gather evidence such as CCTV footage from shops.
Authorities had questioned him when they were rushing to trace the infection sources of three foreign domestic workers who tested positive for variant infections.
They were only able to establish transmission links between the three domestic helpers and
Rizvi and his female friend after the pair revealed they had been at the Chai Wan gathering. Three participants at that gathering had subsequently joined another social event in a Sham Shui Po flat five days later with the three domestic helpers.
More than 2,000 residents of private housing estates where the three helpers lived – Caribbean Coast in Tung Chung, Royalton I in Pok Fu Lam and Kornhill in Quarry Bay – were sent to quarantine camps under some of the toughest local infectioncontrol measures yet.
They were only released in batches beginning on Saturday after the government announced a relaxation of the policy.
Thousands of others who visited the locations the duo had been to, including the Harbour City shopping centre in Tsim Sha Tsui and the Citygate Outlets in Tung Chung, were also ordered to undergo mandatory Covid-19 testing.
Rizvi’s friend did not appear in court yesterday, with prosecutors explaining she had been admitted to hospital with a fever.
Under the Prevention and Control of Disease Ordinance, anyone knowingly providing false or misleading information, including their whereabouts, contact with others or medical history, faces a HK$10,000 fine and up to six months in prison.
The infection cluster with the pair at the centre has grown to at least eight cases, according to health authorities.