Hong Kong shifting to rapid Covid tests to curb record cases

Bloomberg: Hong Kong is changing its Covid-testing strategy to obtain faster results with self-administered kits and is easing isolation rules as it battles to suppress its worst coronavirus outbreak to date.

Hospitals will discharge Covid-positive patients if they are in stable condition and allow them to isolate at homes or in community isolation facilities to relieve the burden on hospitals and healthcare services, health department officials said. People with positive results from rapid antigen tests will be able to register online for follow-up without seeking confirmation in more sensitive nucleic-acid tests to “avoid resource duplication and time delay”.

For fully vaccinated people who test positive, the isolation period will end if they test negative on two consecutive days on the sixth or seventh day. Patients could also be discharged and return to the community if a polymerase chain reaction test returned a negative result on the 14th day after the infection was initially recorded.

The government needs to reserve space at public hospitals to serve those in greatest need, Lau Ka-hin, chief manager (Quality and Standards) of the Hospital Authority, said at a press conference. Further details to be disclosed “as soon as possible.”

The city is battling to contain an outbreak of the omicron variant of the viru that has strained its healthcare system, and raised questions about its Covid Zero strategy. Sophia Chan, Hong Kong’s secretary for Food and Health, warned at the press conference that the number of cases in Hong Kong has yet to peak.

Chief Executive Carrie Lam has ordered mandatory testing of the entire 7.4 million population three times in March, a tactic that has been deployed often in mainland China and is set to uncover even more infections.

“The demand for testing services keeps on growing due to the upsurge of epidemic,” the government said in a statement. “Some citizens may not be able to obtain results after having provided their samples for days, and thus feel anxious during the period. This is clearly not a desirable situation.”

Most people subject to the compulsory testing will now be able take a rapid test on their own instead of lining up at community testing centers. Under the new policy, positive results from nucleic-acid tests conducted by contractors will be immediately deemed as confirmed cases. For those in high-risk and high-exposure groups including airport and quarantine-center workers, compulsory testing frequency will be reduced from once every two or three days to once a week.

Hong Kong is relying on help from the mainland to curtail the current wave. President Xi Jinping recently instructed leaders to make fighting the pandemic their top priority and to take “all necessary measures” to contain the surge.