Mainland Personnel To Help With Mass Testing In HK

The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) said on Friday that the central government has decided to send personnel to the SAR to help carry out mass testing for coronavirus.

In a statement, the HKMAO said Beijing will also help speed up the construction of quarantine and treatment centres in the SAR.

The office said the moves are in response to a request from the Carrie Lam administration for help with reining in Hong Kong's Covid-19 outbreaks.

On Monday, Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung said that being as the mainland has experience in building temporary hospitals in a short space of time, it is going to send a team of experts to Hong Kong to help with the hardware involved.

But he said the SAR government had not asked Beijing to send any medical personnel to the SAR so people "don't need to be concerned about that".

Some Hospital Authority laboratories have been running 24 hours a day as the government ramps up tests for Covid-19 amid a recent surge in infections.

Between the authority and the Department of Health, around 10,000 tests are being conducted each day, pushing the labs to the limit.