Hong Kong health authorities on Tuesday reported 2,085 new local Covid infections and 183 imported cases.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan from the Centre for Health Protection said not only are the number of cases rising, but officials are detecting more infections involving the Omicron subvariants BA.2.12.1, BA.4 and BA.5.

"Although the overall proportion remains low, overseas experience has shown BA.4 or BA.5 are more transmissible and there's also a chance of re-infection. People need to remain cautious," she told a daily press conference.

Chuang said there were 10 new suspected BA.2.12.1 cases and eight involving BA.4 or BA.5.

Meanwhile, 243 schools reported 321 cases between them.

Chuang said they had asked six schools to suspend face-to-face teaching for a number of classes for a week after they each saw two or more infections.

She said four classes at Ying Wa College were affected, but there were no plans to suspend all classes as officials were still investigating how the virus was spreading there.

"I think the daily rapid test among all the students and teachers has helped prevent [those infected] from entering the school. So even though some school classes have a few cases, they have not entered the schools, but there may be some transmission among individual classes because of the high transmissibility of Omicron," Chuang said.

"So we will suggest to continue the current practice and suspend individual classes," she said.

No further deaths of Covid patients were reported.

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