Boosting testing capacity and buying booster shots among measures funded with HK$67.5 billion earmarked for Hong Kong’s Covid-19 fight

But the lawmaker representing the medical and health services sector called on the government to invest more in advanced technology that could help strengthen the city’s contact-tracing abilities.

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po said the government would “mobilise all available manpower and resources to contain and stabilise the epidemic” in his budget speech on Wednesday, when the daily number of Covid-19 cases set another record of 8,674 infections.

Among the new funding allocated to various fronts of the fight, the Food and Health Bureau would be given an additional HK$22 billion to boost testing capacity. A government source said HK$4.3 billion of that would be used to buy rapid antigen test kits, and roughly HK$15 billion would go towards nucleic acid testing services.

The Department of Health would receive HK$6 billion to procure more vaccines as booster doses, as the city pushed ahead with raising the inoculation rate. Around 6 million residents have received their first jab, but only slightly more than 1.5 million of them had received a booster shot.

The government intended to inject an extra HK$12 billion into the Anti-Epidemic Fund to aid construction of various facilities. The insider said the funds would cover building about 10,000 new isolation units at Penny’s Bay and the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal. Construction began last Saturday, with the help of a team from mainland China.