Testing Should Be Part Of HK's Health Regime: Expert

Calls are mounting for the city to increase its testing for Covid-19, with the universal testing scheme due to close on Monday, while a top government official issued a last-minute appeal to the public to take advantage of the free tests.

An infectious diseases expert on Sunday called for the scheme to be made a regular part of the city's health regime, and urged the administration to pump in more resources to achieve this.

Ivan Hung, who heads the University of Hong Kong's medicine department's infectious diseases division, also said he believes Hong Kong is at least one month away from seeing no new infections.

And he said the Hong Kong government should try to keep it rolling - even without Beijing's help.

"For the universal screening, of course, if we could carry on it would be best for the population," Hung said, conceding that this might not be possible, because the mainland health experts might not be able to continue for months.

"So I think after all the most important thing is to increase the capacity of the testing in Hong Kong by itself, which, very simply, is to increase the number of testing points and also to increase the testing capacity inside the laboratories by the Department of Health," Hung said.

Separately, the Chief Secretary, Matthew Cheung, urged people to make use of the programme if they haven't already done so.

Cheung said in his blog that more than 1.6 million people have so far taken the tests, which had detected 23 positive cases, proving their effectiveness in identifying the silent carriers.

Cheung also thanked the mainland medical staff for what he described as their "selfless contributions" carrying out the scheme, and quoted President Xi Jinping as saying last week that "we are willing to do anything at all do protect the lives of our people".

Welfare chief Law Chi-kwong, meanwhile, said in a separate blog that the government was looking at conducting coronavirus tests for elderly home workers.

He conceded that the Covid-related mortality rate at local elderly homes is relatively high, and said the government would work closely with these facilities to improve their anti-epidemic measures.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan, meanwhile, said in his blog that the universal testing programme has increased Hong Kong's overall testing capacity, and believes this will boost the SAR's "combat readiness" if the event of another wave of infections in future.

Chan added that once the current outbreak eases further, the government will come up with a health code system to facilitate the flow of people between Hong Kong and the mainland, which will help kickstart the local economy.

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