HONG KONG (SE): When a second foreign domestic worker contracted the Covid-19 coronavirus from her employer, Michael Manio, a doctor with the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong who leads a foreign domestic worker health enhancement project, urged both employers and workers to take proper preventive measures against the contagion.
According to a February 26 press release from the Centre for Health Protection, the 29-year-old domestic worker lived with her 60-year-old employer in Swiss Towers, Causeway Bay. The employer was confirmed to be infected a day before.
The Filipino domestic worker was admitted to Ruttonjee Hospital on February 25. Neither of them had travel history in the past 14 days.
However, the employer reportedly went to different places on Hong Kong Island during the incubation period, including restaurants, temples and hotels, making the contact tracing work really difficult.
The Philippine Consulate General said on its Facebook page on February 27 that it had contacted the worker and was told that she was in good condition in the isolation ward and no longer had a fever. The consulate also made arrangements for personal items to be brought to her.
Manio urged both employers and foreign domestic workers to limit their activities during the outbreak as a means to cut the chain of transmission.
He said employers should allow workers to rest on holidays and not order them to do the housework if they stay at home and give up their social gatherings.
The doctor has posted information in Tagalog on his Facebook and Instagram pages about the virus and the ways to prevent transmission during the epidemic. “The best thing is knowledge about the virus and (to) observe healthy preventive measures,” Manio said.
The first Filipino worker who contracted the disease from her employer was scheduled to be discharged from hospital on February 29 provided that final test results remained negative, according to a post on Facebook by the Philippine Consulate General on February 28.
