Hong Kong reports 342 new COVID-19 cases

HONG KONG, Feb. 6 (Xinhua) -- Hong Kong reported 342 new cases of COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, according to data from the Center for Health Protection on Sunday.

All the newly reported cases were local infections, of which 20 related to the Delta strain. There were another 300 cases preliminarily tested positive.

Director of Health of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government Ronald Lam told a press briefing on Sunday that over the past two weeks, 1,921 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been recorded.

Lam said there were multiple chains of transmission in Hong Kong and he expected the number of new infections to rise.

Over the past month, more than 3.5 million tests for COVID-19 were conducted territory-wide, Secretary for Food and Health of the HKSAR government Sophia Chan said in her blog on Sunday.

The HKSAR government will adopt a more aggressive testing strategy to identify new infections as soon as possible in order to cut the transmission chains in the community, Chan said, urging people to reduce social activities and stay at home.

Since the start of a mass inoculation program in February last year, about 5.39 million people, or 80.1 percent of the eligible population in Hong Kong, have taken at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccines, while over 4.85 million, or 72.1 percent of the eligible population, have taken two doses.

Meanwhile, over 1.03 million people in Hong Kong have taken their third booster shots.