The Government announced that the compulsory testing exercises and enforcement operations for the restricted areas in Tsim Sha Tsui, Yuen Long, Hung Hom and Yau Ma Tei finished today with no positive cases found.

It said after the compulsory testing exercises have been completed, people in the restricted areas who can present SMS notifications with negative test results or are wearing wristbands as proof of having undergone testing can leave the areas.

The Government exercised the power under the Prevention & Control of Disease (Compulsory Testing for Certain Persons) Regulation on February 1 to make restriction-testing declarations, requiring people within the four specified restricted areas to stay in their premises and undergo compulsory testing.

They had to stay in their premises until all people in the areas were tested and the test results were mostly ascertained.

Additionally, the Government issued compulsory testing notices to those who had been at these buildings for more than two hours from January 19 to February 1 to undergo compulsory testing by February 3 even if they were not present in the restricted areas when the declarations took effect.

The Government set up temporary specimen collection stations at the restricted areas and requested people subject to mandatory testing to have their combined nasal and throat swab samples collected for COVID-19 testing.

About 265 residents in the Tsim Sha Tsui restricted area, 172 in the Yuen Long one, 1,006 in Hung Hom, and 260 in Yau Ma Tei were tested, and no new confirmed cases were found.

Enforcement actions were carried out immediately after the compulsory testing exercises to verify that all people in the restricted areas had undergone testing.

Twenty people, including one from the Tsim Sha Tsui restricted area, three from Hung Hom and 16 from Yau Ma Tei, who did not undergo mandatory testing were fined a fixed penalty of $5,000 and issued with a compulsory testing order.

Meanwhile, the Government assigned staff to visit a total of about 680 households in the four restricted areas, of which more than 100 did not answer the door. Some of them are vacant units or used as a warehouse.

Those who did not answer the door are urged to contact the Government for arranging testing as soon as possible.