Coronavirus: ‘test yourselves for 3 days in a row next week’ – Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam urges residents to use rapid kits for better picture of health crisis

Hong Kong’s leader has urged all residents across the city to screen themselves for Covid-19 using rapid test kits for three days in a row next week to help authorities identify hidden infections in the community and better assess the true extent of the pandemic.

However, medical experts remained sceptical about the scientific value of the voluntary mass exercise, given that it would rely on a quick-testing method with lower sensitivity and the sincerity of people to report their infections, while providing no picture of past infections.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor on Saturday called on everyone to test themselves from April 8-10 using kits delivered to their homes by the government, and report any infections to the authorities within 24 hours.

“The absolute [infection] numbers are still high … That suggests that we still have quite a number of silent transmissions in the community. It will be to the benefit of all of us, to the community at large, to try to identify all these infected cases as soon as possible,” she said.

“If I can get a snapshot of how many among the Hong Kong population are infected, it will be beneficial to our future work on determining anti-epidemic measures.”

Lam added the exercise would also pave the way for the crucial reopening of the border with mainland China as early as possible.

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The city confirmed another 4,475 infections on Saturday, the eighth straight day in which cases were under the 10,000 mark as numbers continued to drop, pushing the total tally to 1,167,713.