Hong Kong reports 142 new COVID-19 cases

HONG KONG, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong recorded 142 new cases of COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, according to the data from the Center for Health Protection on Thursday.

The newly-reported cases include 121 local cases, 31 of which have unknown sources.

Carrie Lam, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), on Thursday met with medical and testing staff and extended her Lunar New Year greetings to them during her visit to the community treatment facility at the AsiaWorld-Expo, the North Lantau Hospital Hong Kong Infection Control Center and the Caritas Medical Center, as well as two contractors involved in the HKSAR government's testing work.

"Raising the vaccination rate is crucial for Hong Kong to ride out of the epidemic," Lam said.

"Besides providing effective protection for those vaccinated and avoiding severe cases or fatalities among them, it helps safeguard the public healthcare system against overload or even collapse upon any epidemic outbreak," she said.

Since the launch of a mass inoculation program in February last year, about 5.35 million people, or 79.5 percent of the eligible population in Hong Kong, have taken at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine, while over 4.81 million, or 71.5 percent of the eligible population, have taken two doses.

Meanwhile, 969,638 people in Hong Kong have taken their third booster shot as of 8:00 p.m. local time (1200 GMT) Thursday.