Boycott Virus Testing For The Good Of HK: Activists

A number of pro-democracy groups, district councillors and activists on Sunday urged Hong Kong people to boycott the universal coronavirus tests offered by the government, warning the programme could do more harm than good.

A day after registration began for the city-wide testing scheme being carried out with help from the mainland, several hundred thousand people have already signed up, according to the government.

But Ivan Law, the vice-chairman of the Hospital Authority Employees Alliance, said this is only because some companies are telling their employees that they must take the tests.

"We've noticed that many companies are forcing their employees to participate in the tests, so that's why there are a number of citizens enrolled in the programme," Law said.

Several Sai Kung district councillors, including some from the Neo Democrats – along with winners of the pro-democracy camp's recent Legco election primaries, such as incumbent lawmaker Chu Hoi-dick – warned that people gathering at testing centres could lead to new clusters of infections breaking out.

They noted that some of the planned testing stations will be situated close to wet markets and other community facilities.

The alliance's Winnie Yu, meanwhile, said the tests might not actually be that effective in identifying hidden carriers in the community and they could give people receiving a false-negative result a false sense of security.

"If the person thinks that he or she will be healthy because of a false-negative result, this will cause a big disaster for the city. Because they will think they are healthy, and they will still carry on with their social activities as usual," Yu said.

The alliance also accused the government of ignoring the contribution of local medics in fighting Covid-19, instead smearing those who have raised questions about the city's anti-epidemic measures.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said last week that those health experts who have expressed doubts about the city-wide testing plan are "smearing the central government".