Mainland experts visit anti-COVID-19 institutions, facilities in Hong Kong

A delegation of mainland epidemiologists on Saturday continued visiting anti-COVID-19 institutions and facilities in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region , and learned about the environmental investigation carried out by the HKSAR government.

The mainland experts visited the Contact Tracing Office under the Communicable Disease Branch of the Center for Health Protection of the Department of Health of the HKSAR government in San Po Kong to get a better grasp of the epidemiological investigation and contact-tracing of COVID-19 cases conducted by the HKSAR government.

The experts also shared the contact-tracing experience in the mainland.

On Saturday afternoon, the epidemiologists met and exchanged experience with representatives of the Environmental Protection Department, the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department and the Department of Health of the HKSAR government.

Secretary for Food and Health of the HKSAR government Sophia Chan said the HKSAR government is in a race against time with the highly transmissible Omicron mutant strain of COVID-19.

"In order to contain the epidemic, we have to trace the close contacts of every confirmed case as soon as possible and conduct environmental investigation rapidly," she said.

On Saturday, Hong Kong registered 6,063 new cases of COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, official data showed.

Since the start of a mass inoculation program in February last year, about 5.77 million people, or 85.7 percent of the eligible population in Hong Kong, have taken at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccines, while about 5.09 million, or 75.7 percent of the eligible population, have taken two doses. Over 1.43 million people have taken their third booster shots.