Hong Kong’s plan to test every resident for COVID-19 is being hobbled by limited take-up as a wary public steers clear of the China-backed health scheme.
The free voluntary tests are part of an attempt to stamp out a third wave of infections that began in late June and saw the densely populated territory reimpose economically painful social distancing measures.
However, the involvement of mainland Chinese testing firms has deterred many in a politically divided territory convulsing with resentment towards Beijing’s rule.
Photo: AFP
Hong Kong Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip (聶德權) yesterday morning said that 1.15 million people had signed up since mass testing began on Tuesday last week out of a population of about 7.5 million.
That figure is well below the 4 to 5 million leading health experts said would be needed for a mass testing scheme to be effective at finding and stopping hidden transmission chains.
The tests would be extended for a further seven days to encourage more people to sign up, Nip said.
“Please take the opportunity to help Hong Kong end the epidemic’s third wave, so that people’s lives and economic activities can gradually return,” he wrote on Facebook.
The tepid enthusiasm is a blow for the territory’s leadership, which suffers from low approval ratings.
They had called on residents to embrace the scheme, billing it as a benevolent public health initiative made possible with Chinese help, but the involvement of teams and labs from the mainland has sent the rumor mills into overdrive and compounded fears of Beijing’s surveillance state, which uses biometric data to monitor its citizens.
A group of pro-democracy politicians and lawmakers, as well as a medical union critical of Beijing, called on the public to boycott the test.
Some prominent health experts also questioned the efficacy of a mass testing program, arguing that more targeted monitoring of at-risk and vulnerable communities would be a better use of resources.
They raised concerns that the act of testing so many people might itself help spread the virus in a territory where emergency rules currently forbid more than two people from gathering in public.
Beijing and Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) have said that those opposed to the testing as being politically motivated and “anti-China.”
No DNA or other biometric data would be harvested from the samples, which would not be tested on the mainland, Lam said.
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