The Home Affairs Department (HAD) announced today that the COVID-19 Community Testing Scheme will be extended to four districts, involving 46 buildings and about 86,000 residents.

Starting tomorrow, the free testing scheme will successively cover Tsz Oi Court in Wong Tai Sin, Choi Fook, Ping Shek, Kai Yip and Choi Ha Estates in Kwun Tong, Shan King and Butterfly Estates in Tuen Mun as well as Chong Tak and Chung Yuen Buildings in Yau Tsim Mong.

The HAD and the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals will first distribute throat-swab sampling kits and registration forms at Oi Yin, Oi Ning, Oi Yan, Oi Wai and Oi Kan Houses of Tsz Oi Court tomorrow and collect the samples the following day.

The department will then work with other social service bodies to distribute specimen bottles and registration forms to residents in the four areas. The specimens collected will be passed to the testing agency, Sunrise Diagnostic Centre Ltd, for testing.

The HAD said the scheme has to be carried out in phases in an orderly manner in view of the large number of buildings involved. The management offices of relevant estates or buildings will duly inform residents of the testing schedule and accord higher priority to residents of buildings with confirmed cases.

The COVID-19 Community Testing Scheme in Tsz Wan Shan has finished. It was launched last month and covered 22 buildings in the district. With the co-operation of the residents, about 34,000 specimen bottles were distributed and more than 29,000 have been collected. Around 85% of residents returned the specimen bottles on time and nearly 80% of household members took part.

The testing agency has completed testing on the majority of the specimens returned. Samples that tested positive have been sent to the Public Health Laboratory Centre of the Department of Health for review. So far, 14 cases had positive test results.