Use Of Rapid Covid Tests To Be Expanded: Carrie Lam

Chief Executive Carrie Lam on Wednesday said that once social distancing measures are relaxed, people will be asked to take rapid Covid tests if they engage in activities with a higher transmission risk.

Lam said she would announce details on Thursday regarding the relaxation plans, which will come into effect on April 21.

At her daily Covid-19 press briefing, Lam said some limits will remain in place on gatherings, without giving details.

Schools are scheduled to resume face-to-face teaching after the Easter holidays and pupils and teachers will be required to take rapid tests every day.

Asked about complaints from some parents and teachers that testing young children daily will be difficult, the CE said officials will review the situation in a few weeks.

"We are not requiring daily tests until the summer. We will do a review in a few weeks, looking at the frequency of the tests, whether tests will be needed every day, and who needs to do it and who doesn't," Lam said.

She stressed that vaccinated children will not be exempted from the tests because inoculation only prevents serious illness and death, but not infection.

Lam also made it clear that ending the flight suspension mechanism isn't among the measures that will be relaxed on April 21. She said reducing imported infections remains an important component of her government’s anti-epidemic strategy.

The CE said despite Covid outbreaks in mainland cities, the SAR government has no plans to suspend schemes allowing people to return to Hong Kong.

"In the mainland, they impose very strict rules to prevent people from an infected area to leave that area," Lam said.

"So in a way that has helped a lot of places, not just Hong Kong, that they're not exporting infected cases to other parts of the country and to the rest of the world."

Lam also announced that with a fall in infections locally, some 5,500 flats used as community isolation facilities will be turned back into public and transitional housing.

Tenants of blocks in Queen's Hill Estate and Lai King Estate are expected to be able to move in in late May at the earliest.

Two plots in Yuen Long, with around 2,500 flats, will also be handed back to transitional housing operators next month.