Hong Kong has started a volunteer coronavirus mass research campaign on Tuesday as part of a plan to break the transmission chain in the city's third disease outbreak.
The virus-testing program has become a focal point of political debate in Hong Kong, with many wary of resources and personnel being supported by the central government of China and worrying that the DNA of the residents might be obtained during the exercise.
The Government of Hong Kong has dismissed such worries, claiming that there will be no addition of personal details to the specimen bottles and that samples will be destroyed in Hong Kong after the training.
The testing program commenced at 8 a.m. And residents heading to over 100 research centres hiring more than 5000 volunteers. At her weekly news conference on Tuesday, Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam said that more than 10,000 individuals, including several of Hong Kong's government ministers, had already provided testing on Tuesday morning.
"This large-scale standardized population research initiative is useful in clarifying the crisis which is good for our community. It will also help Hong Kong survive unscathed from the disease outbreak and is conducive to the resumption of normal activities, "Lam said.
More than 500,000 residents in the 7.5 million cities signed up for the program ahead of time, which would run at least a week. It helps to identify silent virus carriers — people without any symptoms — who could spread the disease.
The government expects 5 million citizens to enrol in the program, which based on demand could be expanded every two weeks.
Lam encouraged the public to view the program rationally and impartially, and pleaded to opponents to avoid stopping people from taking the test so that the program could be as successful as possible in detecting infectious people in the community.
Hong Kong's worst disease in early July was partly blamed on exempting airline staff, truck drivers from mainland China and container ship sailors from quarantine criteria.
Hong Kong reported more than 100 locally transmitted cases a day at its height, following weeks in June without any.
The virus has slowed, with just nine cases recorded by the city on Monday, the first time in two weeks that regular infections have fallen to single digits. Even so, the government and some experts say community testing will help identify asymptomatic carriers to further stop the virus spread.
Respiratory medicine professor David Hui said that while infections have diminished, the proportion of cases with untraceable sources of infection remains between 30 % and 40%.
"That means there has to be a quiet transmission going on, so community testing has a part to play in picking up such quiet transmitters," said Hui, who is a city government public health advisor. "Hopefully if we can recognize and separate these individuals for a time which can help break the community's transmission chain."
If the majority of the community attends, the program is more successful, Hui said.
"If just one or two million people attend, then we will not be able to reach that goal," he said.
Other specialists, such as Dr Leung Chi-chiu, a respiratory specialist and a member of the Hong Kong Medical Council, said that the research program only plays a supplementary function in controlling the city's pandemic because of the long and variable coronavirus incubation period.
Leung said mass testing may not be the most cost-effective method, as it is not simple to pick up the disease in its early stages, particularly if an individual has no symptoms or has not recently had an infected patient's exposure.
Even if mass tests can classify patients who were infected, they may already be past the infectious stage, he said.
Leung said that large-scale testing will not replace traditional methods of social distancing and touch tracking measures, and should only be used as a supplementary measure.
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