Hong Kong fourth wave: pro-establishment camp piles on pressure for mandatory mass Covid-19 testing as ministers visit Shenzhen for talks
- Political heavyweight Tam Yiu-chung makes public an appeal he sent to city’s leader to consider adopting more compulsory measures to achieve zero infections
- Carrie Lam’s office responded by recapping achievements in acquiring Covid-19 vaccines while maintaining that testing needed to be strategic
These included a partial lockdown, mass screening and use of the “Leave Home Safe” Covid-19 risk exposure app.
Tam also revealed in the letter to Lam, dated December 10, that his alliance had written to Beijing’s liaison office earlier this month and secured the mainland’s pledge to reserve vaccines for Hong Kong.
In the letter, Tam said: “The coalition supports the government to require high-risk groups to take mandatory tests when needed and again launch large-scale community testing.
“With the cooperation of the people, we hope it can achieve the goal of zero cases so the cross-border flow of people can resume as soon as possible.”
In response to his letter, Lam’s office recapped the achievements in the acquisition of Covid-19 vaccines, maintained that testing measures needed to be strategic and that the government would continue to encourage the public to download the app.