More Lockdowns May Be Coming Soon: Matthew Cheung

Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung warned on Sunday that more coronavirus lockdowns may be coming soon despite a mixed response to three such exercises since Saturday last week.

Writing in his blog, Cheung said the government’s goal remains reducing the number of Covid-19 cases to zero, and different types of operations to impose mandatory tests on at-risk residents could be launched on different scales within the short term.

He said government departments had been told to get ready to quickly deploy civil servants to join frontline anti-epidemic work at short notice.

Some experts have said the limited lockdowns the government has imposed in Jordan, Yau Ma Tei and North Point haven’t been very effective, given that of almost 8,000 tests conducted, just 14 Covid infections were found.

But Cheung insisted such programmes have been useful.

“This kind of targeted and effective action successfully identified silent patients quickly while minimising the impact on people. The government will continue to boost the scale and speed of this kind of action based on the development of the pandemic and practical needs,” he said.

“Silent virus carriers often don’t have any symptoms and they are spreading the virus unknowingly. The government will not underestimate a single source of infection as any of them might cause a large-scale outbreak.”

The Chief Secretary added that officials will carry on enforcing mandatory test orders even after lockdowns are lifted, saying they will root out those who had not gotten tested as required.

Cheung said around 30 people had been fined HK$5,000 for failing to take the mandatory tests in the past week.

Meanwhile, Health Secretary Sophia Chan said in her blog that the authorities would take more resolute and strict action to control the Covid outbreak.

She noted that businesses had been hit hard by the pandemic but stressed that a “short period of inconvenience” could completely cut off virus transmission in the community, which would then allow commercial activities to resume.