A girl who went missing in Cheung Sha Wan has been located. Lin Wai-yee, aged 13, went missing after she left her residence in Un Chau Estate on April 1 morning. Her family made a report to Police on April 14. The girl returned to her resid… read more
In response to media enquiries regarding the arrest of a number of people by the Police today (April 18) in connection with organising and participating in unauthorised assemblies, a spokesman for the Security Bureau made the f… read more
The following is issued on behalf of the Legislative Council Secretariat: Details of the meetings of the Legislative Council (LegCo) and its Committees to be held in the LegCo Complex during the week from April 20… read more
The Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, today (April 18) welcomed the passage of the funding application for the second round of the Anti-epidemic Fund and other relief measures by the Legislative Council (LegCo) Finance Committee.
“The epidemic has caused an unprecedented impact on Hong Kong’s economy in the past three months. Various sectors have been hard hit with many businesses facing pressure to close down and massive staff layoffs being anticipated. The Government needs to take resolute and exceptional measures to prevent the situation from deteriorating and relieve the imminent need of the businesses and the employees. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the LegCo Finance Committee for passing the funding application for the second round of the Anti-epidemic Fund and relevant items following some 20 hours of discussion so that the Government can implement various relief measures worth $137.5 billion as soon as possible,” said Mrs Lam.
“This round of relief measures includes an $81 billion Employment Support Scheme, subsidies to hard-hit sectors, financing guarantee scheme to help ease the cash flow of businesses, relaxed eligibility requirements for the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance to support the unemployed and the implementation of an MTR fare concession, benefiting directly and indirectly millions of members of the public.
“Together with the first round of relief measures under the Anti-epidemic Fund worth $30 billion and the relief measures in the 2020-21 Budget costing $120 billion, the Government has committed a total of $287.5 billion, accounting for 10 per cent of Hong Kong’s Gross Domestic Product. Given the epidemic’s unprecedented impact on Hong Kong’s economy, the Government has to dig deep into its fiscal reserves accumulated over the years to help our businesses and people.
“I would like to express my gratitude to the organisations and individuals for submitting proposals to the Government after I announced the preparation for the launch of the second round of the Anti-epidemic Fund, and to colleagues of various relevant policy bureaux and departments for their hard work. I have no doubt that various departments share the views that these relief measures are timely for many businesses and people, and will implement them at full steam to achieve the effect of safeguarding jobs and supporting enterprises.” read more
The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
In response to the large number of inbound travellers from Europe and the United States, the Hospital Authority (HA) had set up temporary test centres at AsiaWorld-Expo and North Lantau Hospital since March 20 to arrange tests for travellers with upper respiratory symptoms for early identification of the COVID-19 infection.
Starting from April 5, the test services have been consolidated at the test centre at AsiaWorld-Expo. With the declining number of inbound travellers, the test centre at AsiaWorld Expo will be suspended from noon tomorrow (April 19) to refocus manpower resources to hospital services.
The HA spokesperson said, “The HA Major Incident Control Centre will liaise closely with the Department of Health to arrange the transfer of inbound travellers with respiratory symptoms, people undergoing home quarantine or close contacts of confirmed cases to various Accident and Emergency Departments (A&E) for the tests required. They may need to wait at the A&E test and triage centres for the test results, which usually take several hours.”
The HA thanked the teams of healthcare workers and supporting staff for setting up the test centres within a very tight timeline to implement the instructions of the Government’s Steering Committee in relation to the COVID-19 virus. The appreciation was also extended to the participating colleagues from different hospital clusters who help run the service around the clock.
“The pre-hospital test service has played an important diversion role by largely reducing the number of suspected cases admitted to the hospitals for testing and alleviating the demand pressure for first-tier isolation beds. As of yesterday (April 17), of the over 1 400 specimens collected at the two test centres, about 100 confirmed cases were identified. The process of on-the-spot testing and the release of test results have saved a total of 1 300 admissions to the hospital, leaving more public hospital isolation facilities for confirmed cases.” read more