Police today (February 26) appealed to the public for information on a man who went missing in Mong Kok.

     Lam Ka-leung, aged 34, went missing after he was last seen in a care home on Ivy Street on February 24 afternoon. Staff of the care home made a report to Police yesterday (February 25).
         
     He is about 1.75 metres tall, 77 kilograms in weight and of medium build. He has a long face with yellow complexion and short black hair. He was last seen wearing a yellow T-shirt, grey shorts and white sports shoes.

     Anyone who knows the whereabouts of the missing man or may have seen him is urged to contact the Regional Missing Person Unit of Kowloon West on 3661 8038 or 9020 6542 or email to rmpu-kw@police.gov.hk, or contact any police station.

  

     The Town Planning Board today (February 26) announced amendments to the approved Tsuen Wan Outline Zoning Plan (OZP).

     The amendments mainly involve the rezoning of various sites for housing developments, including two sites near Yau Kom Tau Village and at Po Fung Terrace from "Green Belt" to "Residential (Group B) 6" ("R(B)6") and "R(B)7" respectively; a site near Cheung Shan Estate mainly from "Residential (Group A)" ("R(A)") to "R(A)20"; and a site to the south of Kwok Shui Road from "Government, Institution or Community" to "R(A)21".
    
     A site at Hilltop Road is also rezoned for housing development to take forward the decision of the Metro Planning Committee of the Board on a s.12A application, and six "Comprehensive Development Area" sites are rezoned to reflect the existing developments. Opportunity is also taken to amend the Notes and Explanatory Statement of the OZP to reflect the above amendments and to update the general information of various land use zonings and the planning area, where appropriate.

     The draft Tsuen Wan OZP No. S/TW/34, incorporating the amendments, is now available for public inspection during office hours at (i) the Secretariat of the Board, (ii) the Planning Enquiry Counters, (iii) the Tsuen Wan and West Kowloon District Planning Office, (iv) the Tsuen Wan District Office, and (v) the Tsuen Wan Rural Committee.

     Any person may make written representations in respect of the amendments to the Secretary of the Board on or before April 26. Any person who intends to make a representation is advised to read the revised Town Planning Board Guidelines No. 29B on "Submission and Publication of Representations, Comments on Representations and Further Representations under the Town Planning Ordinance" (TPB PG-No. 29B).

     Submission of a representation should comply with the requirements set out in TPB PG-No. 29B. In particular, the representer should take note of the following:
 
* If the representer fails to provide his or her full name and the first four alphanumeric characters of his or her Hong Kong identity card or passport number as required under TPB PG-No. 29B, the representation submitted shall be treated as not having been made; and
* The Secretariat of the Board reserves the right to require the representer to provide identity proof for verification.
 
     The Guidelines and the submission form are available at locations (i) and (ii) above and the Board's website (www.info.gov.hk/tpb).

     Copies of the draft Tsuen Wan OZP are available for sale at the Map Publications Centres in North Point and Yau Ma Tei. The electronic version of the OZP can be viewed at the Board's website (www.info.gov.hk/tpb).

     The Government announced today (February 26) the appointment of Mr Cheung Leong to succeed Mr Bernard Charnwut Chan as the Chairperson of the Committee on Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food. The appointment is for a period of three years from March 15, 2021 to March 14, 2024. In addition, 12 new members have been appointed and four incumbent members have been re-appointed.
 
     Members of the Committee comprise representatives from various sectors, including the food industry, relevant academia and the education and mass media promotion sectors. The key task of the Committee is to offer recommendations to the Food and Health Bureau on matters relating to reduction of the intake of salt and sugar by the public, as well as reduction of salt and sugar in food.
 
     The Secretary for Food and Health, Professor Sophia Chan, said,  "The Committee has promoted and implemented a good number of salt and sugar reduction initiatives under the leadership of Mr Chan in the past six years, which created a less-salt-and-sugar dietary ambience in Hong Kong and laid a solid foundation for future work of the Committee.
 
     "I am confident that under the leadership of Mr Cheung, the Committee will continue to make invaluable recommendations to the Food and Health Bureau on various matters relating to salt and sugar reduction."
 
     Professor Chan also expressed her gratitude for the contributions of the outgoing members, namely Dr Mak Sin-ping, Professor Kwan Hoi-shan, Mr Lam Chiu-wing, Ms Sylvia Lam See-way, Professor Ronald Ma Ching-wan, Mrs Elizabeth Mok Lee Mi-yu, Dr Ricky Szeto Wing-fu, Dr Terry Ting Ho-yan, Ms Tse Po-chu, Mr Clory Wong, Ms Gilly Wong Fung-han and Mr Jason Wong Ho-yin.
 
     Full membership of the Committee on Reduction of Salt and Sugar in Food for the new term, which will take effect on March 15, 2021, is as follows:

Chairperson
————-
Mr Cheung Leong *

Non-official Members    
———————–
Mr Kiyotaka Ando
Mr Andrew Chan Kam-chuen *
Mr Dion Chen *
Mr Ryan Cheung *
Ms May Chung *
Mr Peter Paul Joseph Johnston
Ms Dorcas Lau Shing-suet *
Mrs Linda Lau Hung Man-yin *
Mr Francis Lo Fai-shing *
Miss Winona Lo Oi-ling
Mr Gerry Ma Kwai-yung
Ms Alice Ng Yim-ting *
Mr Frankie Siu *
Professor Wong Man-sau *
Ms Danica Yau *
Mr Rogers Yuen Lai-boon *

Ex-officio Members
———————
Representative of the Food and Health Bureau
Representative of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department
Representative of the Department of Health
Representative of the Education Bureau

* New members

     The effective exchange rate index for the Hong Kong dollar on Friday, February 26, 2021 is 100.8 (up 0.4 against yesterday's index).

     Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for the Civil Service, Mr Patrick Nip, and the Secretary for Food and Health, Professor Sophia Chan, on the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme at a media session today (February 26) after visiting the Community Vaccination Centre at the Exhibition Gallery of the Hong Kong Central Library:

Reporter: With the delayed arrival of the BioNTech vaccine, will there also be a significant delay in the time of roll out of this kind of vaccine to public? With three extra centres added now, looking at the current demand, is there a need to add even more centres? Second question, in future will civil servants also be required to love the Chinese Communist Party?
 
Secretary for the Civil Service: I think I'd confine to questions relating to the vaccination programme. Regarding the arrival of the BioNTech vaccine, the original scheduled day was Thursday. The latest scheduled arrival day is tomorrow, and we hope that the vaccine would arrive in Hong Kong as scheduled. I don't think there is a significant delay in the arrival, so it would not have significant impact on our vaccination programme. As regards the demand for vaccination, whether for Sinovac vaccine or BioNTech vaccine, the number of community vaccination centres we have planned for, and also the private clinics network, are sufficient for the planned capacity to have the population vaccinated. So as we operate the centres, we would closely monitor the situation, assess the demand and make necessary adjustments, just like we've recently decided to add three additional community vaccination centres for about two months for Sinovac vaccine because we noticed that there is overwhelming response and many people would like to get vaccinated early. So we've responded to this demand and we made the arrangement as best as we can and hope that we could continue to launch the programme in a safe, orderly manner, rest assured that the number of vaccines that we purchased and expected to arrive in Hong Kong is sufficient. So there is no shortage of stock. It is a matter of how we organise the vaccination in accordance with the priority groups and also in accordance with the operation experience, and we can adjust the plan accordingly.

Reporter: … make vaccination compulsory for travel?
 
Secretary for the Civil Service: The vaccination is, we have to get the informed consent to get vaccinated. After you get vaccinated, whether there are rooms for relaxation of social distancing measures or any relaxation or criteria for international or cross-boundary travel, etc, I think it is a matter that is of immense interest, but it is a matter that we have to look at it carefully. And the international community including the airport community and the airline industries, I am sure that they are looking into it based on science and evidence-based considerations. So we would monitor it.
 
Secretary for Food and Health: I would also like to give additional information to Patrick's comment about the additional centres. As we all know, in next week, private general practitioners (GPs) will start their vaccination programme. Some of them are also collaborating with the District Health Centre in Kwai Tsing District. When the GPs start their vaccination programme next week, a number of GPs will be collaborating with the District Health Centre.

Reporter: Can you offer more details on the contingency plans for side effects that you mentioned? What if the residents develop any side effects on-site and what if they reached home?

Secretary for Food and Health: First of all, after people have been vaccinated, they will be observed at the vaccination centre for 30 minutes. So if there are any side effects or people feel unwell, the healthcare professionals on-site will take care of them. If you look at the product information, there are some very common side effects, for example there are some pains at injection sites or sometimes people will feel a bit tired. These are very common and transient, therefore it will go away very soon. But if they feel that they have some sustained unwellness, I would advise that people should go to consult their doctors. If there is anything that is of adverse events and the healthcare professionals or doctors feel that we need to be notified, we have already started a notification system by the Department of Health to register all the adverse events after vaccination. They are also collaborating with the University of Hong Kong to initiate the surveillance of the adverse events from people who were vaccinated. At the same time, in this afternoon, we will be going to the LegCo Finance Committee to seek funding for the indemnity fund for vaccination.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)