Coronavirus: Hong Kong confirms 6,646 new cases as government considers mass at-home testing exercise to help ‘gauge infection situation’
- A source says the mass at-home testing will serve as a ‘voluntary and supplementary’ measure, and will not replace an official universal screening exercise
- Latest infections mark sixth consecutive day city’s daily caseload is below 10,000
Hong Kong residents may be asked to take part in mass at-home Covid-19 testing via kits set to be distributed from Saturday to help the government better gauge the current epidemic situation, the city’s leader has said.
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor floated the possibility at her regular coronavirus press conference on Thursday after being asked whether the government still planned to pursue a controversial compulsory universal testing drive.
“Since we are distributing rapid antigen tests in the anti-epidemic service bags, we would like to explore whether we can make use of this convenient and accurate tool … so that we can gauge the infection situation,” Lam said, referring to packs of supplies and medicine that would be handed out to all Hong Kong residents.
Lam added that daily caseloads, though on the decline, were still too high to conduct universal screening via government-run testing sites, noting the healthcare system was unlikely to be able to cope with the new infections the exercise might uncover.
The city confirmed 6,646 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, the sixth consecutive day the caseload was below the 10,000 mark. Another 119 deaths were reported, including 17 fatalities that had not been taken into account due to a backlog.
The overall tally of confirmed cases since the start of the pandemic stands at 1,157,415, while the total number of related deaths has reached 7,825.
The government will begin distributing the anti-epidemic service bags – containing 20 rapid tests, 20 KN95 masks and two boxes of proprietary traditional Chinese medicine – to nearly 3 million households on Saturday. Lam said it would take about a week to hand out all the packages.
