(To watch the full press conference with sign language interpretation, click here.)

Secretary for Food & Health Prof Sophia Chan today announced that four long-term community testing centres will open on November 15 to provide self-paid COVID-19 testing services for the public.

Speaking at a press conference this morning, Prof Chan said the price of the testing services will be capped at $240.

The centres' booking system is available online.

Prof Chan emphasised that in addition to Hong Kong, she is concerned about the epidemic situation worldwide.

“Not only do I worry about our local situation. In fact, I worry about the global situation whereby there are over 50 million people now being confirmed with COVID-19. It's a very severe situation. That's why we are now tightening our border control measures.

“For the local situation, the number of cases has subsided if we compare it to the early stage of the third wave. However, we are seeing in local cases that there is an increasing trend and there are also these clusters coming out as a result of the gatherings, such as staycations. But the most important thing of course is our capability and capacity to curb the epidemic.

“The double jeopardy in the local situation is our winter flu surge. That is upcoming. So together with COVID-19, if there is a fourth wave, it will be more severe and therefore we have to be very careful.”

The Government’s specimen collection and COVID-19 testing services via mobile stations in Tai Po will continue, Prof Chan announced.

The mobile van near the taxi station in front of the Hang Seng Bank at 41 Kwong Fuk Road will extend the operation for distributing and collecting deep throat saliva specimen bottles to November 12, and continue to collect specimen bottles on November 13.

The mobile specimen collection stations at the volleyball court next to Kwong Wai House of Kwong Fuk Estate and the open space outside Fu Shin Community Hall will extend the operation period to November 15.

The other mobile specimen collection station located at the open space between the Pai Lau and the Pavilion of Wai Tau Tsuen will maintain operations until today.

As of yesterday, the Government had provided a free COVID-19 testing service to more than 6,800 people via the mobile specimen collection stations in Tai Po.

“If we look at Tai Po as an example, after we knew that there were a few confirmed COVID-19 cases arising from Tai Po, we very quickly started our district testing management. That includes putting in, for example, a mobile van, mobile testing stations on top of the general out-patient clinics’ (GOPC) bottle distribution for specimen collection and on top of the Centre for Health Protection’s outbreak investigation work.

“The Government has put out these measures. It is very important for the public to come forward for testing.”

Prof Chan added that the social distancing measures currently in place will be maintained until November 19.

The Government will gazette directions and specifications under three relevant regulations today.