(To watch the full press conference with sign language interpretation, click here.)

The Centre for Health Protection today said it is investigating 17 additional COVID-19 cases, all of which are locally transmitted.

Among them, four have unknown sources of infection.

The centre's Communicable Disease Branch Head Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan told a press conference this afternoon that the new cases involve three residents of Oi Wo House in Tai Wo Estate, taking the number of affected units to four. Three of them are on 14/F.

"For Oi Wo House in Tai Wo Estate, we first issued a compulsory testing notice on February 7 due to two COVID-19 cases being confirmed in one unit on 14/F of that building. Afterwards, we also confirmed three more cases today. Two of them stayed on the same floor as the patients of the previous cases.

"It is possible that the patients from the first unit, during the infectious period, may have used some common facilities such as the lift, maybe the mailbox and also the corridor. It is possible that some environmental contamination happened or they may have just bumped into each other during some occasions, although they don't know each other."

Dr Chuang added that other residents on the same floor need to be evacuated.

"It is possible that other residents on the same floor are also incubating the disease, although a compulsory testing order has been issued and I think most of them have been tested. To be prudent, we put all the other residents into quarantine centres."

Other confirmed cases include two Po Leung Kuk On Tai Rehabilitation Centre staff who were reported as preliminary positive cases yesterday, and a resident of Wai Lee Building in Quarry Bay who lives in 05 unit.

For information and health advice on COVID-19, visit the Government's dedicated webpage.