Turn Wan Chai convention center into isolation facility: David Hui

Authorities should turn Hong Kong Convention And Exhibition Centre into a community isolation facility for Covid-19 patients with mild symptoms, respiratory disease expert David Hui Shu-cheong said.

This came after the city's record new daily infections have pushed hospitals to their breaking point. Tents are set up outside public hospitals to house patients waiting to be admitted.

In a radio program on Thursday, Hui said many hospitalized patients are in stable conditions but have yet to meet the conditions for discharge. The government could arrange for them to be isolated at HKCEC to free up beds for patients waiting at accident and emergency departments. 

He said isolating patients with cycle threshold (CT) values lower than 30 at the exhibition center would be more efficient than sending them to public housing blocks or hotels.

Hui also suggested the government to learn from Singapore, where asymptomatic or mild cases are allowed to quarantine at home for seven days and undergo testing every day until no virus was detected.

"Singapore allowed vaccinated patients who test negative on the seventh day to finish quarantine, while the unvaccinated who still test positive on the seventh day have to be quarantined until the 14th day."

However, he also said Singapore has a relatively higher vaccination rate and more spacious housing, so Hong Kong may not be able to follow suit. 

"The most important factor is whether the patients' home is suitable for isolation. If there are elderly or young children at home, it may not be suitable."

In a press conference on Thursday, Undersecretary for food and health Chui Tak-yi said authorities will look into different options to increase isolation capacity. They will start with the option which can be rolled out the quickest. 

The government announced earlier that new public housing estates will be turned into temporary isolation blocks, while developers have proposed offering their hotels for the same purpose. 

With the fifth wave escalating, the SAR government has decided to order all 7.5 million residents to get tested, reported Sing Tao Daily, the sister newspaper of the Standard. Their testing date will be decided in accordance with their Hong Kong identity card numbers. 

Up to a million people will be tested every day, and each person will have to go through three tests within three weeks. 

The latest proposal will not involve locking down districts one by one. But those who fail to comply with the testing order will be fined HK$10,000.

Speaking in a radio program, infectious disease expert Ho Pak-leung said the key to a citywide test is to get it finished quickly. 

He said it may take three to four days, or even a week, to get results for the citywide test. Therefore, it would be better to get everyone undergo rapid tests every three days, rather than three tests within three weeks.

He suggested adopting the rapid antigen test to test all citizens within one or two days without lockdown, so that results would be available as soon as possible.

Those who tested positive could be arranged to quarantine facilities and undergo the nucleic acid test, he said.