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

The Centre for Health Protection today said it is investigating 6,410 additional locally acquired COVID-19 cases, of which 2,192 were directly identified through nucleic acid tests and 4,218 via verified rapid antigen tests.

Separately, 244 imported cases were found and 10 more patients passed away.

Five residential care homes for the elderly logged seven coronavirus infections involving residents and staff. There were also 141 cases reported by 81 schools.

Meanwhile, the Hospital Authority will mobilise up to 5,000 beds for COVID-19 patients as more than 2,100 patients who tested positive for the virus are being treated in hospitals. It would also scale down its non-emergency services further, in order to deploy more resources for COVID-19 patients.

Announcing the moves at the press briefing this afternoon, the authority's Chief Manager (Integrated Clinical Services) Dr Larry Lee said: “For the public hospitals, we have a fixed number of hospital beds and now we have to mobilise some more beds to handle the COVID-19 situation.

“Actually, these beds, in the past, were able to handle the non-COVID-19 patients, including all the patients coming through the community or maybe coming through the accident and emergency departments.

“This is one of our limitations. The other limitation is about the support of the community treatment facilities, including the HKICC (Hong Kong Infection Control Centre) and the AWE (AsiaWorld-Expo).

“We have the hardware there and, actually, we can mobilise more beds or maybe mobilise more patients there, but the difficulty for ourselves is about the manpower. To deploy adequate manpower, we would need to stop some of our non-emergency services or maybe even some more clinical services so that we can mobilise the patients and also mobilise the staff there.

“These two limitations lead to the fact that we have to significantly stop some our services so that we can make the necessary deployment of the hardware and also the manpower.”

He called on citizens not to let their guard down against COVID-19.

This afternoon, the Government made a restriction-testing declaration to cover King Hin Court in Wong Tai Sin, 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 areas in Kwun Tong, Tai Po and Sha Tin, the Housing Department and the respective district offices will distribute COVID-19 rapid test kits to relevant residents as well as cleaning workers and property management staff working there.

Due to a number of positive cases, 52 specified places are included in a compulsory testing notice. It also covers another six specified locations in Ho Man Tin where some sewage samples tested positive for the virus.

The Government will set up or reopen mobile specimen collection stations at Ma Hang Estate in Stanley and Wah Fu (I) Estate in Pok Fu Lam tomorrow, while the service period of the station at On Yam Estate in Kwai Chung will be extended to August 25.

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