All Households To Get Anti-Covid Packs Next Month

The government on Friday said it plans to start sending out anti-epidemic packs to all Hong Kong households at the start of next month and it hopes to complete the deliveries within a week.

The contents will include 20 rapid test kits, 20 KN95 masks and Chinese patent medicine.

"Things inside are mainly resources the central government gave Hong Kong in support, to show the motherland's care and support for Hong Kong compatriots," acting home affairs minister Jack Chan told a press conference.

He said the packs will be distributed through the Housing Authority, building management firms, the Heung Yee Kuk and volunteer groups.

If anyone misses out for some reason, they will be able to get a pack from collection points to be set up later, the official added.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said with the test kit deliveries, people are encouraged to check themselves for Covid more often, so that infections can be picked up quicker.

She said more than ten thousand volunteers will help with the packing and delivery of the packs, and they have been given personal protective gear to avoid the spread of Covid.

Lam also hit out at a newspaper report she described as "misleading".

The CE did not specify which report she was referring to, but on Sunday Ming Pao wrote that the vast majority of vaccinated Hong Kong people who have died in the Omicron outbreak had received the Sinovac jab.

"I was very aggrieved and actually very angry, when as recently as a few days ago, a local newspaper was still presenting the headlines which were misleading, which will immediately give old people, their relatives and the whole community the wrong message," Lam said.

Earlier, the Centre for Health Protection's Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan also described the report as misleading, saying both Sinovac and BioNTech can lower the mortality rate.

At Friday's Covid press briefing, Lam also said she had received a letter from 11 airlines calling for the cancellation of air crew travel measures -- such as the need for Covid tests -- and the Transport and Housing Bureau is following up on the matter.

Lam stressed, however, that the government has no plans to relax pandemic rules for air crew for the time being because this would make it harder to lift border restrictions in general.