Hong Kong to roll out rapid antigen COVID tests for all residents

By Twinnie Siu and Marius Zaharia

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong plans to roll out fast antigen checks for COVID-19 to all its 7.5 million individuals within the close to future, metropolis chief Carrie Lam mentioned on Friday, because the more and more remoted international monetary hub tries to manage a brand new outbreak.

Lam advised reporters her authorities was engaged on growing testing, contact tracing and vaccination capability and planning to ship hospitalised asymptomatic sufferers to a quarantine facility reserved for shut contacts as infections add up.

Amid worries of invisible transmissions within the metropolis, Lam mentioned the federal government was procuring tens of tens of millions of fast antigen checks, however didn’t specify when and the way the federal government will deploy them for voluntary common testing.

On Friday, Hong Kong reported 131 optimistic circumstances, in contrast with 142 on Thursday. Some 195 examined “preliminary optimistic” and could also be added to the rely in coming days topic to additional checks. The earlier file was 164 circumstances in late January.

“This newest outbreak is the worst we have now seen previously two years,” Lam mentioned. “Our technique is identical: we goal to chop transmission chains as quickly as doable.”

Lam additionally flagged an additional HK$20 billion ($2.6 billion) in aid measures for individuals and small companies affected by the restrictions at the moment in place, that are tighter than in the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. She didn’t give particulars.

In whole, Hong Kong has recorded 213 COVID-19 deaths and simply over 14,000 circumstances since early 2020, in line with the federal government.

The Chinese language-ruled metropolis has adopted mainland China in pursuing a “dynamic zero-COVID” coverage aimed toward suppressing coronavirus infections as quickly as doable after they happen, bucking a world pattern of dwelling with the virus.

Colleges, gyms, pubs and different venues are closed, civil servants and others are again working from residence, 1000’s have been despatched into quarantine services, whereas most flights to the town are suspended and hardly any transit flights are allowed.

As soon as one of many world’s most related locations, Hong Kong is, nevertheless, reeling from the closure of its borders, impacting the free move of individuals and the provision of meals and international merchandise the town is extremely depending on.

($1 = 7.7882 Hong Kong {dollars})

(Reporting by Twinnie Siu and Marius Zaharia; enhancing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)