Coronavirus: fewer than 1,000 cases found in Hong Kong voluntary mass testing drive, showing ‘lower rate of infection in community’

A voluntary mass testing exercise over three days uncovered fewer than 1,000 Covid-19 cases in Hong Kong but officials declined to be drawn into declaring the drive a success beyond suggesting the figures aligned with similar studies conducted.

The estimated 800 infections detected among people who had joined the testing scheme were part of the total tally of 3,128 confirmed over the past three days.

Health officials declined to comment if the number of reported cases was indicative of a snapshot of the actual pandemic situation.

Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable disease branch at the Centre for Health Protection, said 64.3 per cent of infections unveiled in the voluntary three-day rapid antigen test (RAT) screening were asymptomatic and that there was a “lower infection rate in the community”.

“Before the programme, we had been recording a downward trend of [the] number of cases reported through both the PCR [polymerase chain reaction] test and the RAT platform,” Chuang said. “I think all the pointers in the community [and] the surveillance indicate that there is a lower rate of infection at the present moment.”

Chuang was referring to the surveillance programme carried out by the University of Hong Kong, which recruited 10,000 residents citywide to conduct daily rapid tests to project the number of infections in the overall population.

According to the latest projection, an estimated 0.2 per cent of the city’s 7.4 million population were infected on Monday.

Chuang said a sewage study conducted by authorities and PCR detection also showed low infection rates.