Escaped Hong Kong Covid-19 patient arrested, returned to hospital

It was not immediately known where Li Wan-keung, 63, might have visited during his 54 hours on the loose in city.

The Covid-19 patient who sparked a police manhunt after fleeing from a Hong Kong public hospital was finally tracked down and arrested late Sunday night, 54 hours after his escape.

Sources said police received a report that Li Wan-keung, 63, had been spotted on the corner of Nathan Street and Soy Street in Mong Kok shortly before 11pm.

It remained unclear why Li fled the isolation ward at Queen Elizabeth Hospital at around 5pm on Friday or which places he might have visited before being apprehended. A source said he was not wearing hospital clothes when he was spotted.


Li Wan-keung, a 63-year-old Covid-19 patient, was on the run for more than 50 hours after fleeing Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei on Friday afternoon.


Li was sent back to Queen Elizabeth Hospital just before midnight. While the patient was in a stable condition, he still had some symptoms of infection and posed a risk to others, a Hospital Authority official said

The authority had earlier said it would look into enhancing security measures, given that no guard had been posted outside the ward and CCTV cameras were not recording at the time.

Before Li escaped on Friday, he had made an unsuccessful attempt to leave the ward the day before.

He was a close contact of another Covid-19 case, and was admitted on Monday after being confirmed positive two days earlier.

The authority said Li had taken some convincing from medical staff before cooperating with treatments and tests, but he had otherwise shown no abnormal behaviour before he fled.

Staff had been alerted about his first escape bid, but health officials suggested he had succeeded the second time as he had “moved too quickly” while workers were busy, running down the stairs and disappearing for the next 54 hours.

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