Chief Executive Carrie Lam said the Government will help residential care homes for the elderly and residential care homes for people with disabilities to strengthen disease prevention.

She made the announcement yesterday at a press conference on enhanced measures to reduce the risk of a large-scale outbreak of COVID-19 infections in the community.

Mrs Lam noted she had earlier decided to provide one million surgical masks monthly to these institutions for use by the nursing staff, and that will now be doubled to two million a month.

Meanwhile, the Social Welfare Department will arrange for an anti-bacteria coating developed by a local university's innovation and technology team to be sprayed in these institutions to strengthen virus prevention.