3 in 5 high-risk Hongkongers sceptical of severe Covid-19 illness: study

“For example, at Queen Mary Hospital, the number of cases has risen by 10 to 15 per cent in these two weeks.

“In every 10 Covid-19 patients, around one to two of them had to be admitted to intensive care units. I believe that in the coming weeks, these severe cases will be more common.”

The winter flu season might break out from February to April, Hung added.

The study was conducted by multinational market research firm Ipsos between July 3 and 13 involving surveys of 34,038 people from the Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East, Russia and Africa. They included 2,001 Hong Kong residents.

Of 1,109 participants classified as high-risk in the city, only 30 per cent were convinced they were at increased risk of serious Covid-19 outcomes. Sixty-one per cent did not believe it and 9 per cent were unsure.

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Forty-six per cent of 1,674 people who had experienced confirmed or probable Covid-19 infection said they did not seek medical help, with a quarter of them pointing out they were not concerned about the severity of symptoms.

Only 54 per cent of all the respondents from Hong Kong said they would follow instructions of healthcare professionals to take medicine. Forty-two per cent said they would only take prescribed medicine when they were seriously ill.

Dr Ada Lin Wai-chi, chief of the society, said factors such as smoking, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension and old age could put patients at a higher risk of serious symptoms. Some of the participants, however, were clueless about this.

Hung said it was “natural” people might become more relaxed now the Covid-19 pandemic had subsided.

“Nonetheless, I think it is important for the high-risk groups, especially the elderly and those with morbidities [to have] the awareness of both Covid-19 and influenza … and they should know they are high-risk so that they will be able to seek medical attention and also get medication as soon as possible,” he said.

“A lot of the time, when these high-risk patients are infected with Covid-19, they may not have many symptoms at the early stage and may have overlooked the importance of early medication.

“They may only start using medicine when their situation deteriorates, which will be less effective.”

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He added studies had shown that it was most effective to take oral antiviral drugs within three days of symptom onset, which would reduce the rate of hospitalisation or death by 89.1 per cent.

The expert also called on the government to raise awareness among high-risk groups and promote vaccine vitality, early treatment and medication.

The third-generation Covid-19 jab targeting the XBB variant was likely to be available in the city in late November, Hung said.

The Centre for Health Protection previously said it would start procuring the vaccine, while experts urged high-risk groups to take any available Covid-19 booster shot if their last vaccination was more than six months ago.

In a commentary in Chinese daily Ming Pao on Wednesday, top infectious disease expert Professor Yuen Kwok-yung and two colleagues from HKU wrote that scientists and authorities should work on identifying viruses that could potentially cause a pandemic among humans, and conducting preventive measures.

“The next pandemic can be caused by influenza viruses that originated from birds or pigs,” the experts warned.

Yuen and the two other experts – David Lung and Kelvin Chiu Hei-yeung – said around three-quarters of new emerging diseases were caused by pathogens from animals.

“To identify pathogens with potential to cause a pandemic, samples could be obtained from animals for testing,” they said.

Venues where humans and animals made contact, such as slaughterhouses, wet markets and farms, should be put under surveillance, they stated.

They called for monitoring border entry points and putting symptomatic travellers coming from countries where there were suspected outbreaks of unknown diseases under epidemiological surveillance.

Authorities should also use social media to monitor any outbreaks of diseases, the experts said.