Doctor Expects Covid Situation To Worsen Over Winter

A public doctor says people should remain vigilant about Covid-19, even though the government's two-week-long voluntary testing scheme only found 32 new cases of the disease after testing almost 1.8 million people.

"First of all we see that globally, the pandemic seems to get worse again especially when it is approaching the winter time," said Dr Arisina Ma, the president of the Hong Kong Public Doctors' Association. "Countries around are actually getting more and more cases so I think the fourth wave may come quite soon and may be even worse than the third or the second wave."

Ma says future testing should use saliva samples, which people can do themselves, to reduce the cost of setting up collection centres with health staff to take throat swabs. The government's testing scheme cost HK$530 million.

Ma said Hong Kong authorities had gained experience from the mass testing but it remained to be seen how conditions would develop as the flu season would overlap with Covid-19 in the coming months.

The Chief Executive Carrie Lam has described the scheme as a success and said it couldn't be judged on a cost per case basis. Officials have also pointed out that a single infected person can infect many people.