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Hong Kong’s mass coronavirus testing cost taxpayers HK$530 million, leader labels scheme a success
- Programme uncovered 42 infections after screening less than a quarter of population, but Chief Executive Carrie Lam says data is useful
- Civil service minister Patrick Nip reveals HK$370 million spent on salaries for health care and support staff
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The bill to taxpayers for Hong Kong’s mass coronavirus screening is HK$530 million, although the total cost of the controversial programme will remain unknown until the mainland Chinese partners involved disclose how much they spent.
The government revealed the price tag, equivalent to US$68.3 million, a day after the two-week voluntary testing came to a close on Monday, having checked less than a quarter of the city’s 7.5 million people. Aside from the expenditure, some health experts had questioned whether the drive would prove an effective tool in containing the spread of Covid-19. The effort uncovered 42 infections, or two per 100,000 people.
But Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said the value of the operation could not be judged simply by the number of cases discovered. Rather the process had taken a snapshot of the extent of Covid-19 in the community and the data would help the government make better informed decisions about its pandemic response going forward.
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“The [outcome] is difficult to be assessed by the expenditure,” Lam said. “If we managed to find thousands of cases, does it mean this scheme is successful?”
Lam argued the results could indicate the spread of the virus during the third wave, which began in early July, might not be as severe as the public feared.
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“We could then further relax social-distancing measures or discuss travel arrangements with different governments including the mainland and Macau,” she said. “The benefits brought [by the scheme] are far more than a few hundreds of millions dollars.”
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