Hong Kong govt claims almost 1 million people have registered for mass COVID-19 testing

Hong Kong government has recorded nearly 978,000 people registering for the COVID-19 mass testing programme, the Secretary for Innovation and Technology Alfred Sit said on Saturday, September 5.

According to a government press release, around 656,000 people have been tested and about 284,800 samples from the community tests have been processed by labs as of 8 pm Friday evening. It added the people testing COVID-19 positive will be referred to the Public Health Laboratory Services Branch of the Department of Health for confirmatory tests. The confirmed cases will be followed up and announced by the Centre for Health Protection.

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Online booking system UCTP

According to Hong Kong authorities, about 1 million persons have made appointments since August 29 as the online booking system opened. However, there have been 166 cases of one's personal data being used by others for online booking under the UCTP. Upon examination, 93 of the cases were found to involve suspected fraudulent use of others' personal data for booking and they have been referred to the Hong Kong Police.

A Hong Kong Government spokesman stated that the UCTP aims to identify asymptomatic COVID-19 patients in the community as early as possible for early treatment and thereby stop further infections with the disease.

"We urge all citizens to participate in the testing programme, for the sake of themselves as well as that of other people, and work together to cut the virus transmission chain, so as to facilitate gradual resumption of our normal daily lives and economic activities,"  said Hong Kong Government spokesman.

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According to international media reports, Hong Kong will extend the programme at most of its testing centres up to September 11. Earlier, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam had said that the government has no set target for total testing numbers. The free universal COVID-19 tests provided by the authorities started on September 1.

Despite strict social distancing norms and other restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the virus, Hong Kong has seen a recent rise in COVID-19 cases. Given this situation, Hong Kong authorities launched the mass COVID-19 testing programme for the city residents in an effort to understand how the infection is spreading.

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