Streamline Covid Testing Procedures, Expert Urges

University of Hong Kong microbiologist Ho Pak-leung on Wednesday urged the government to further streamline testing procedures for Covid-19 to beef up capacity in light of a surge in infections.

Health authorities had on Tuesday said they would no longer re-test samples that had already been tested in Hospital Authority laboratories for confirmation.

Ho told an RTHK programme the same approach should be taken with results from private labs as well, as the government’s testing capacity is already maxed out.

“For positive cases in Hong Kong, even for private labs, they have done a large number of nucleic tests in the past two years. Private labs, the Hospital Authority, private hospitals and the Department of Health all have mature technologies and they’ve all been inspected by the Department of Health to make sure they are up to standards,” Ho said.

“I think if [the tests] can rather accurately reflect the outbreaks, there’s no need for the department to further confirm test results. The Hospital Authority has skipped this procedure, which I think is the right direction,” he said.

The expert said this could be something of a transitional arrangement before assistance from the mainland arrives.

Meanwhile, he said the SAR should make it its target to administer 10 million Covid vaccines in the coming four to six weeks, saying overseas experience show boosting the take-up rate within a short timeframe is effective in curbing outbreaks.

He said the government should mobilise the private medical sector to provide outreach vaccination services at schools, elderly homes and children’s homes, given the low inoculation rate for these age groups.

Ricky Chiu, adjunct associate professor of biomedical sciences at the Chinese University, whose company also runs several testing centres in the city, said while private labs’ results are reliable, it’s possible that they could make mistakes if demands continue to grow.

Therefore, he said it would help for the Department of Health to confirm test results, and if it becomes too overwhelmed, it could consider doing random checks instead of testing every single specimen.