Hong Kong leaders are planning to mandate testing for the city's nearly 7.5 million residents to combat rising cases
Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam has announced that the city is"planning very seriously" to implement mandatory COVID-19 testing for its nearly 7.5 million residents in an attempt to combat a rise in cases. "In our case, having examined the unique situation in Hong Kong, we probably will just go for universal testing of everyone, but testing more times," Lam said, while citing neighboring Macao's use of repeated universal testing for its 600,000 people.
Lam also announced the upcoming Chief Executive election will be postponed from March 27 to May 8 in order to give the government time to fight rising case levels. "This decision was made on the back of the current situation, a situation that we have not seen in the past two years," Lam said."The situation is aggravating and quite critical, and in order to protect the health of Hong Kong's people, the government should focus all resources to fight the epidemic. We cannot afford to be distracted, and we cannot afford to make mistakes."
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