Quota To Be Boosted At Busy Swab Collection Centres

The government is boosting the quota at several coronavirus testing centres and considering extending its free testing service into a third week as the Secretary for the Civil Service, Patrick Nip, revealed that laboratories can test only around two million samples in a week.

Speaking to a Commercial Radio programme on Wednesday, Nip said the labs could only handle around 300,000 specimens a day.

The specimen collection which started on Tuesday is expected to last for one to two weeks and authorities have not set a target number for the voluntary tests. But some government advisers hoped four million people would be tested.

When asked if this figure of two million tests in a week would fail to effectively identify invisible patients in the community, Nip said: "What I mean is, the universal community test is aimed at covering as many people as possible, so as to find out about how the community is faring amid the pandemic.

"But it depends on many factors; such as our capacities, the number of people who give specimen, where we collect it and how long the tests last. The more people we test the better, but it’s not like it must reach a certain figure to be effective."

He said it would still give a useful reference, for example, for authorities to consider relaxing infection control measures, and for other places to consider whether to reopen their border for Hong Kong residents.

Nip said the government will observe for one more day before making a decision on whether to extend the scheme for another seven days.

The secretary, who is in charge of the exercise, said some community testing centres are already fully booked for the rest of the week, but authorities will add extra slots in these centres to accommodate more bookings.

Nip said the scheme ran smoothly on day one with around 126,000 people giving their specimens, and that 710,000 people have signed up for the test as of Wednesday morning.