Govt Wise To Shelve Mass Testing: Expert

A government adviser on the pandemic, Ivan Hung, on Tuesday welcomed the administration's decision to suspend a plan to conduct territory-wide mandatory Covid testing, saying doing so at this point in time will not be cost-effective.

Speaking on an RTHK programme, the HKU expert said the pandemic is already showing signs of easing, and this is no longer an ideal time to test everybody in the city.

“The best time to do citywide testing is when the epidemic first breaks out … but we have missed that chance … Doing it now would also be wrong because if you were to do it at, or right after the peak, it would be useless unless we had the facilities to isolate the large number of positive cases that would be found,” Hung said.

“Later, if the epidemic eases really quickly, the cost-benefit is not proportional. You have devoted a lot of resources and manpower, only to find very few cases, like several thousand. It won’t help to end the epidemic. It will just end several days or one week earlier.”

The expert said he believes the epidemic will subside at a faster pace with more people being vaccinated, while pointing to a HKU study that suggests that over half of Hong Kong’s population has already been infected.

The daily infection tally may drop to three-digits by April 21 when social distancing measures are due to be relaxed, he said.

Health Secretary Sophia Chan, meanwhile, said the government will continue to monitor developments and consider whether there’s a need to bring back the plan for citywide Covid testing.

Chan told RTHK that the mass screening plan has been shelved because Hong Kong needs to focus its resources on reducing infections, severe cases and Covid deaths.

The government may reconsider the plan when the time and conditions are ripe, the health chief stressed.