(To watch the full media session with sign language interpretation, click here.)

Chief Executive Carrie Lam today said the decision to postpone the 2020 Legislative Council election was made during a critical period when more than 100 confirmed COVID-19 cases were recorded daily.

Mrs Lam made the remarks when she was asked about the election during a media session ahead of the Executive Council meeting this morning.

She said: "We have explained so many times that conducting a general election is not a small thing. It is not just only on the voting day when we may have over three to four million voters coming out to vote on a single day, but there are also a lot of electioneering activities and preparatory work to do before the election."

Mrs Lam pointed out that the decision to postpone the election was a very difficult one.

"I announced the postponement on July 31, and I think that was during the period when we saw successive daily cases of over 100. In fact, the peak of 149 confirmed cases happened, I think, on the day before my announcement. So that was a very critical period and the decision had to be made.

"Of course, the Legislative Council has its own cycle, just like government work has its own cycle. So without knowing when this epidemic will subside and in order to preserve the normal cycle of business of LegCo, the decision was taken to postpone it by one year.

“This is not unique to Hong Kong, as I have quoted the case of the United Kingdom. As early as March they had decided to postpone the elections originally scheduled for May for the local governments and all the different mayors by one year to May 2021.”