(To watch the full press conference with sign language interpretation, click here.)

Secretary for Health Prof Lo Chung-mau today said better detection and isolation measures are key to reducing the community transmission of the coronavirus disease and the number of daily COVID-19 cases.

Prof Lo told reporters at a press briefing this afternoon that the Government will try to exercise its maximum responsibility to improve the current COVID-19 detection and testing measures, such as making polymerase chain reaction tests much more easily available, cheaper, faster and more convenient for the public.

“In that case, then we can detect and isolate the infected minority, rather than imposing all these more strict social distancing measures to the non-infected majority.”

The Centre for Health Protection said it is investigating 2,748 additional locally acquired COVID-19 cases and 197 imported ones.

Prof Lo predicted that the number of new cases may roughly be doubled in about two weeks' time, based on the trend in the last few weeks.

“I think we are here to shape the future. We will have to carry out more vigilant and more precise testing, and more vigilant isolation for the infected minority, including home isolation and (making use of) specific isolation facilities to make sure that those infected people are not walking around in our community and causing community outbreaks.

“I think with better detection measures and isolation measures, we will be able to reduce the community transmission and reduce the R0 (the basic reproduction number) hopefully to below one, and then we will be seeing a decrease in the total number of new cases every day.”

Due to a number of positive cases, 60 specified places are included in a compulsory testing notice.

The notice also covers five buildings in Diamond Hill, Tuen Mun, Yau Tong and Tung Chung where some sewage samples tested positive for the virus.

The Government will set up or reopen the mobile specimen collection stations at Chi Fu Fa Yuen in Pok Fu Lam, Hong Keung Court in Lok Fu, Ocean Pointe in Sham Tseng, Cheung Ching Estate in Tsing Yi and Shek Yam East Estate in Kwai Chung tomorrow.

Moreover, the community testing centre at the Ground Transportation Lounge of Hong Kong International Airport will be relocated to the airport’s South Transition Deck at L6 of Terminal 1 starting tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the Government made a restriction-testing declaration to cover Chiu Man House of Oi Man Estate in Ho Man Tin, requiring people in the restricted area to undergo compulsory testing before the specified deadline.

As there were positive sewage test results with relatively high viral loads in several estates in Sha Tin, Kwai Tsing and Tsuen Wan, the Housing Department and respective district offices will distribute COVID-19 rapid test kits to relevant residents as well as cleaning workers and property management staff working there.

For information and health advice on COVID-19, visit the Government's dedicated webpage.