Universal Covid Tests Effective, Says Patrick Nip

The Secretary for Civil Service, Patrick Nip, has defended the government's voluntary Covid-19 testing programme, saying it’s been effective although only 16 new coronavirus cases have been picked up so far.

Health officials have collected specimens from more than 1.2 million people, out of which more than 856,000 have been tested.

Speaking on an RTHK programme on Tuesday, Nip said the free tests had stopped the silent virus carriers from infecting more people.

"If these cases were not picked up by our programme, perhaps they would only be identified after they showed symptoms and infected others," he said.

"It showed the effectiveness of our programme. It also showed the importance of testing more people in ending the latest wave of infections which has lasted for 10 weeks," he said.

He said the virus carriers identified by the scheme are linked to several transmission chains, involving people from all walks of life. He said it showed the public should not be complacent, as infection risks are still here.

He also revealed that more than 1,500 people had been tested more than once under the programme.

Nip said the government would study whether the scheme should be further extended for a few more days beyond Friday.