HKSAR gov't urges public not to let guard down on epidemic prevention

HONG KONG, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Carrie Lam Wednesday called on the public not to let their guards down on epidemic prevention, as the number of COVID-19 infections in Hong Kong has not shown significant decline.

Lam said during a daily press conference on anti-epidemic measures that the number of positive cases in Hong Kong has reached its peak on March 3 during the fifth wave of the epidemic and has been plateauing off at a high level since March 11.

There is a slight increase in the flow of people in Hong Kong this week, with people starting to move around again, Lam said, reminding the public not to let their guards down against the epidemic.

"The public should continue to take strict precautions and refrain from going out unless necessary," Lam said, stressing that the epidemic situation has not yet been stabilized.

According to Lam, the HKSAR government has purchased a large amount of rapid antigen tests with the support from the central government in the past two to three months, with nearly 8 million of them distributed to the public.

The HKSAR government will strengthen elderly support by adopting the strategy of "reverse isolation", where uninfected elderly people will be moved out of residential care homes when there are new infections, Lam said.

The Social Welfare Department of the HKSAR government has arranged for two recently licensed but non-operational elderly homes, providing a total of 200 beds to accommodate these elderly people.

Edwin Tsui, controller of the Center for Health Protection of the Department of Health of the HKSAR government, said that Hong Kong currently records nearly 30,000 COVID-19 cases every day, indicating that the virus is still active in the community.