Author Archives: hksar gov

     The Home Affairs Department (HAD) today (February 22) was invited to join the meeting of the Full Council of Heung Yee Kuk (HYK) by video conferencing, to explain the Government’s anti-epidemic works carried out in rural areas in the New Territories, including COVID-19 Vaccination Programme, different testing arrangements, provision of rapid test kits, and support to persons undergoing home quarantine under the “StayHomeSafe” Scheme through telephone hotline services.

     HAD listened to the views on the Government’s anti-epidemic works expressed by HYK at the meeting. To support the anti-epidemic work in rural areas, special arrangement has been made by HAD to provide 10 000 sets of COVID-19 rapid test kits to HYK for distribution to residents in need in various villages.

     HAD briefed the meeting about the vaccination arrangement in rural areas and appealed for their continuous support of promoting COVID-19 vaccination in the rural community. In addition to vaccination centres, mobile vaccination stations and the designated private doctors and clinics, the District Offices in the New Territories will continue to organise more vaccination events in different areas to facilitate vaccination by the rural community. In view of the needs in remote villages, the Islands District Office has also arranged boats to deliver vaccines and related equipment to the areas concerned for providing vaccination services.

     HAD expressed gratitude to the HYK and the rural community for their co-operation and support in fighting against the epidemic together such that different anti-epidemic measures could be implemented successfully. read more

     The Social Welfare Department (SWD) today (February 22) said that various offices will be temporarily closed until further notice due to the occurrences of positive, preliminary positive and suspected cases of COVID-19 respectively. The details are set out as below:
 

	Office	Address	Case
1	Traffic Accident Victims Assistance Section	Room 101, 1/F, Mong Kok Government Offices, 30 Luen Wan Street, Mong Kok	Positive
2	Tai Hing Social Security Field Unit	Room 303A & 304, 3/F, Tai Hing Government Offices, 16 Tsun Wen Road, Tuen Mun	Positive
3	Residential Care Service Voucher Office	Rooms 2701-07, 27/F, Two Chinachem Exchange Square, 338 King’s Road, North Point	Preliminary positive
4	Chai Wan Social Security Field Unit (Note)	Level 4, Government Offices, New Jade Garden, 233 Chai Wan Road, Chai Wan	Preliminary positive
5	Kwai Chung (East) Integrated Family Service Centre	Shop B, 2/F, Shek Lei Shopping Centre Phase I, Shek Lei Estate, 6 Wai Kek Street, Kwai Chung	Suspected
6	Tin Shui Wai (North) Social Security Field Unit	G02, G/F, Ancillary Facilities Block, Tin Ching Estate, Tin Shui Wai	Suspected
7	Tin Shui Wai (South) Social Security Field Unit	G/F, Yiu Fung House, Tin Yiu Estate, Tin Shui Wai	Suspected
8	Wong Tai Sin Social Security Field Unit	Units 103-106, 1/F, Stelux House, 698 Prince Edward Road East, San Po Kong	Suspected
9	Tseung Kwan O (North) Integrated Family Service Centre	G/F, King Tao House, King Lam Estate, Tseung Kwan O	Suspected
10	Kwai Chung (East) Social Security Field Unit	5/F, Kwai Hing Government Offices, 166-174 Hing Fong Road, Kwai Chung	Suspected
11	Central & Islands Integrated Family Service Centre	4/F, Harbour Building, 38 Pier Road, Central	Suspected

Note: The Chai Wan (West) Integrated Family Service Centre, which is on the same floor, will also be temporarily closed.
 
     The positive cases are related to two Social Security Assistants working in the Traffic Accident Victims Assistance Section and the Tai Hing Social Security Field Unit respectively. They last performed duties on February 16.
 
     On the preliminary positive cases, the case found in the Residential Care Service Voucher Office is related to a Social Security Assistant who last performed duties on February 21, while the case found in the Chai Wan Social Security Field Unit is related to a Social Security Assistant, who last performed duties on February 17.
 
     They had been wearing masks when performing duties. Their body temperatures were normal when undergoing temperature screening during work.
 
     A thorough cleaning and disinfection has been arranged at the premises concerned. For enquiries, members of the public may call the following service units during office hours:
 
(1) Traffic Accident Victims Assistance Section (Tel: 2832 4615);
(2) Tai Hing Social Security Field Unit (Tel: 2467 2927);
(3) Residential Care Service Voucher Office (Tel: 3107 3280 or 3107 3290);
(4) Chai Wan Social Security Field Unit (Tel: 2557 7868);
(5) Chai Wan (West) Integrated Family Service Centre (Tel: 2569 3855);
(6) Kwai Chung (East) Integrated Family Service Centre (Tel: 2428 0967);
(7) Tin Shui Wai (North) Social Security Field Unit (Tel: 2443 2500);
(8) Tin Shui Wai (South) Social Security Field Unit (Tel: 2477 2351);
(9) Wong Tai Sin Social Security Field Unit (Tel: 2382 7511);
(10) Tseung Kwan O (North) Integrated Family Service Centre (Tel: 2701 9495);
(11) Kwai Chung (East) Social Security Field Unit (Tel: 2421 1028) ; and
(12) Central & Islands Integrated Family Service Centre (Tel: 2852 3137).
 
     During the pandemic, the department has been strictly implementing various disease prevention measures, including measuring the body temperature of people entering the office and providing masks and other personal protective equipment for staff. Staff members are reminded to pay attention to personal hygiene and to stay vigilant. They should seek medical advice immediately if feeling unwell. read more

     Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session this afternoon (February 22):
 
Reporter: How’s the universal testing different from the Mainland style? Why a lockdown, which was reported to be suggested by the Beijing Government, was not implemented? Is there any estimation that how many positive cases could be identified through CUT (Compulsory Universal Testing)? Many isolation facilities will be completed in the coming few months. How can you ensure that they are enough for cases identified from CUT which will start next month? You have also mentioned earlier that this wave will be contained in two to three months. Do you have a more, like, pessimistic forecast now? And also, like, how can the Government ensure residents confined by CUT would have enough assistance? Will there be compensation offered to the business sector affected by the testing and also, will the residents’ mobility be restricted during the CUT is being carried out? If yes, then what’s the alternative on that?
 
Chief Executive: There’s a whole range of issues, I try my best to answer. I hope you understand, I want to clarify that I have not used descriptions like “I’m guaranteeing that this will happen”, “the fifth wave will be contained” and “I will ensure that this will happen and that will not happen”. It is not possible. This is an unprecedented challenge and nobody could predict the development of this fifth wave of the COVID-19 epidemic. I met with my six experts this morning including Professor KY Yuen, Professor Gabriel Leung, Professor Lau Yu-lung, Professor David Hui, Ivan Hung and CS Lau – six distinguished professors specialising in different aspects of public health and medicine. They gave me not entirely the same advice, exactly because nobody could predict. So I could not answer your question whether this wave will definitely be contained within two to three months. What I have told you is we hope to make the full use of the next two or three months because this is critical. We probably have not seen the peak of this wave, so how we are going to manage the next two to three months will be extremely essential and critical to containing but there is no guarantee whatsoever.
 
     And as far as the Compulsory Universal Testing which we intend to do is concerned, there is no instruction from the Central People’s Government on a lockdown, so I cannot comment on your very speculative remark that Beijing has imposed an instruction of a lockdown. I have explained that we are shouldering the primary responsibility for combating the COVID-19 epidemic. The country, our motherland, is giving us all the support that we need at this critical stage. But at the end of the day, I am responsible under “One Country, Two Systems”. This is entirely a matter for the Hong Kong SAR Administration to tackle. But the Central People’s Government has given us all the support that we have asked for and I am sure we will continue to ask for more support in terms of medical supplies or personnel or testing equipment and so on.
 
     Again, I could not predict or forecast the percentage of positive cases arising from a universal testing. But to give you a feel is that, nowadays when we did the RTD, that is the “restriction-testing declaration” we started off at the beginning of this month, the percentage of discovery, so to speak about positive cases, was 0.5 per cent, but more recently, it has risen to 2 per cent. And in two extreme cases, it was even 7 point something per cent, so that’s very worrying. But of course that is not a representative sample because that is already indicated by a high viral load in the sewage specimen that we have tested. Everybody is now predicting that we will have a pretty sizeable percentage of people infected with COVID-19 in Hong Kong. So hopefully through the Compulsory Universal Testing, we will try to identify these infected cases and put them in isolation.
 
     To ensure the success, we need a lot more isolation facilities. We will keep on identifying these isolation facilities, whether in the form of units like the Penny’s Bay or the CIF hotel, that is Community Isolation Facility hotel, or like AWE (AsiaWorld-Expo) which is a large hall, an indoor stadium and so on which will be converted into beds rather that individual units. All the facilities that are being identified will be built as soon as possible, and they will come on stage as soon as possible. During the CUT, at the moment we have no plans to disallow people to leave their home because that would be very difficult to implement as a large number of people have to go out to work especially in relation to the anti-epidemic work. Whenever we have something that is mandatory you have to think about exemptions; how to identify all those people who need to be exempted, allowing them to go out to work for essential services and to support the anti-epidemic work or to support the financial services in Hong Kong is a very big issue. So we will not likely take a decision to disallow people to go out on a wholesale and a prolonged basis. One night is okay, two days may be also okay but the CUT will take place within the month of March, for three times, so how long are we going to lock up the people of Hong Kong? Let’s do not focus on a city lockdown or a lockdown, let’s focus on how we could ensure the 7.4 million people in Hong Kong will embrace this compulsory universal testing and take an active part so that it will be a successful scheme.
 
     I don’t exactly understand your point about compensation. If you refer to our prolonged implementation of social distancing measures where we are imposing closures on a large number of premises, we will continue to help these enterprises as we did. In this wave alone we have introduced two rounds of Anti-epidemic Fund assistance – AEF 5.0, AEF 6.0 – costing $30 billion. We will continue to monitor the situation and do our best to help the affected enterprises but tomorrow happens to be the Annual Budget day, so we will have to see what the Financial Secretary has to tell us about the possible relief measures for enterprises and individuals in Hong Kong and based on that, if there is still the need to help, we certainly will help them. Thank you.
 
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
  read more

     The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Government announced today (February 22) that it will construct community isolation and treatment facilities with the assistance of the Central Government at the followin… read more

    The Government exercises the power under the Prevention and Control of Disease (Compulsory Testing for Certain Persons) Regulation (Cap. 599J) and publishes in the Gazette a compulsory testing notice, which requires any person who had been present at 22 specified places during the specified period (persons subject to compulsory testing) to undergo a COVID-19 nucleic acid test. 
 
     In view of a number of cases tested preliminarily positive/positive, 22 specified places are included in the compulsory testing notice. The Government strongly reminds members of the public to strictly follow the compulsory testing requirements and undergo testing on time as required. The Government will knock on doors at the specified premises to notify residents of the compulsory testing requirement. Mobile specimen collection stations will be set up in different districts to facilitate testing to be conducted in compliance with the compulsory testing notice. The above compulsory testing requirement applies to those who have completed a COVID-19 vaccination course as well. They are advised to closely monitor their health conditions. They should seek medical attention and undergo testing even if they have only mild symptoms.

     Details of the compulsory testing notice are available on the Centre for Health Protection (CHP)’s website via the following link: (www.chp.gov.hk/files/pdf/ctn_20220222.pdf).

     Except for tests that, as specified, may be carried out using deep throat saliva sample, persons subject to compulsory testing in accordance with a compulsory testing notice must go to any of the mobile specimen collection stations, community testing centres (CTCs) or recognised local medical testing institutions to undergo professional swab sampling in fulfilling the requirements for compulsory testing. Young children may continue to undergo the test using a stool specimen.

     The Comirnaty and CoronaVac vaccines are highly effective in preventing severe cases and deaths from COVID-19. They can provide protection to those vaccinated to prevent serious complications and even death after infection. The Government appeals to persons who are not yet vaccinated, especially senior citizens, chronic patients and other immunocompromised persons who face a higher chance of death after COVID-19 infection, to get vaccinated as soon as possible for better self-protection.

     CTCs provide testing services for the public, including free service for persons subject to compulsory testing. Booking and walk-in services are available. Members of the public only need to provide simple personal information on the 24-hour booking system (www.communitytest.gov.hk/en). The system shows the booking status of the centres for the coming two weeks to facilitate the public’s planning and selection of a suitable testing centre and a time slot for testing. The testing centres will accord priority to serve individuals with advance bookings. As of 6pm today (February 22), there were around 36 per cent availability for booking places for the coming 14 days. Members of the public may call the testing centres for enquiries on the availability of bookings or walk-in quotas before visiting the centres.
 
     The Government will set up additional mobile specimen collection stations at Tsuen King Circuit Sports Centre in Tsuen Wan and Tin Ning House of Lung Tin Estate in Tai O tomorrow (February 23). In view of the severe epidemic situation, in order to stop the spread of virus in the community as soon as possible and reduce the number of people waiting at the service points for testing, ticketing machines have been installed in a number of service points for on-site ticket arrangement. Depending on the actual situation of different sites, such ticketing arrangement will be made available at more suitable service points for testing. Members of the public can visit the CTC website (www.communitytest.gov.hk/en) to check the real-time queueing ticket status of relevant service points for testing.
 
     Testing services will be provided by CTCs and mobile specimen collection stations at a total of 74 places in various districts tomorrow. Persons subject to compulsory testing may conduct free testing at CTCs or mobile specimen collection stations (if the service scope is applicable). The opening dates and operating hours of the mobile specimen collection stations are stated in the Annex.

     Persons subject to compulsory testing may choose to undergo testing via the following routes:
(a) For tests which require using a sample taken through combined nasal and throat swabs
1. To visit any of the mobile specimen collection stations (see the list and target groups (if applicable) at www.coronavirus.gov.hk/eng/early-testing.html) for testing;
2. To attend any of the CTCs (see the list at www.communitytest.gov.hk/en);
3. To self-arrange testing provided by private laboratories which are recognised by the Department of Health (DH) and can issue SMS notifications in respect of test results (see the list at www.coronavirus.gov.hk/pdf/List_of_recognised_laboratories_RTPCR.pdf), and the relevant sample must be taken through combined nasal and throat swabs; or
4. To use a specimen bottle distributed to the relevant specified premises by the CHP (if applicable), and return the specimen bottle with the stool sample collected as per relevant guidelines.

(b) For tests which may be carried out using deep throat saliva sample, or for persons holding a medical certificate issued by a registered medical practitioner proving that they are unfit to undergo testing using a sample taken through combined nasal and throat swabs because of health reasons
1. To obtain a deep throat saliva specimen collection pack from any of the 120 post offices, vending machines set up at 20 MTR stations or 47 designated general out-patient clinics (GOPCs) of the Hospital Authority and return the specimen to one of the designated specimen collection points (see the distribution points and times, and the specimen collection points and times, at www.coronavirus.gov.hk/eng/early-testing.html);
2. To undergo testing at any of the GOPCs of the Hospital Authority as instructed by a medical professional of the Hospital Authority; or
3. To self-arrange testing provided by private laboratories which are recognised by the DH and can issue SMS notifications in respect of test results.

     A spokesman for the Food and Health Bureau cautioned that testing received at the Accident and Emergency Departments of the Hospital Authority or during hospital stays, or testing provided by private laboratories which cannot issue SMS notifications in respect of test results, does not comply with the requirements of the aforementioned compulsory testing notice.

     “If persons subject to compulsory testing have symptoms, they should seek medical attention immediately and undergo testing as instructed by a medical professional. They should not attend the mobile specimen collection stations or the CTCs.”

     Persons subject to compulsory testing must keep the SMS notifications containing the result of the test and the relevant medical certificate (if applicable) for checking by a law enforcement officer when the officer requires the persons to provide information about their undergoing the specified test.

     Furthermore, persons subject to testing under the compulsory testing notices should, as far as reasonably practicable, take appropriate personal disease prevention measures including wearing a mask and maintaining hand hygiene, and, unless for the purpose of undergoing the specified test, stay at their place of residence and avoid going out until the test result is ascertained as far as possible.

     Any enquiries on compulsory testing arrangements may be addressed to the hotline at 6275 6901, which operates daily from 9am to 6pm. If persons subject to compulsory testing plan to conduct testing at any of the CTCs, they can check the centre’s appointment status in advance. The hotlines of the CTCs are available at www.communitytest.gov.hk/en/info.

     The Government will continue to trace possibly infected persons who had been to the relevant premises, and seriously verify whether they had complied with the testing notices. Any person who fails to comply with the testing notices commits an offence and may be fined a fixed penalty of $10,000. The person would also be issued with a compulsory testing order requiring him or her to undergo testing within a specified time frame. Failure to comply with the order is an offence and the offender would be liable to a fine at level 4 ($25,000) and imprisonment for six months.

     The spokesman said, “The Government urges all individuals who are in doubt about their own health conditions, or individuals with infection risks (such as individuals who visited places with epidemic outbreaks or had contact with cases tested positive), to undergo testing promptly for early identification of infected persons.” read more