Expert Says Mass Testing May Make Govt Cautious

An infectious diseases expert says that mass Covid-19 testing may make authorities more cautious, even though the government says testing will help Hong Kong open up. Professor Benjamin Cowling from the University of Hong Kong says that's because the scheme might reveal a large number of asymptomatic cases.

"The best thing we can hope for is zero positives," he said. "So testing hundreds of thousands of people and finding that none of them have Covid and that we weren't missing a large number of asymptomatic infections in the community.

"Because the danger for Hong Kong is, when we get down to zero cases on a daily basis, there may still be some asymptomatic cases in the community and if we relax the measures too quickly then we'll have a resurgence. That didn't happen to us in March of course, in April, but it could happen this time."

Cowling also said the number of cases in Hong Kong should be at zero before authorities further relax social distancing measures.

The government said late on Sunday that more than 430 000 people have signed up online for the Universal Community Testing Programme (UCTP) since bookings opened.

It said 80 community testing centres were fully booked for Tuesday, when the UCTP opens, accounting for more than half of all the 141 community testing centres.