Transitional housing to be turned into isolation centers

Two transitional housing projects will be converted into community isolation facilities, the government announced on Monday. 

The Transport and Housing Bureau is coordinating the conversion of United Court at Tung Tau in Yuen Long and the first phase of Pok Oi Kong Ha Wai Village in Kam Tin, Yuen Long, into community isolation facilities. They will provide more than 2,500 units, accommodating over 5,000 people. 

The families who have been arranged to live in these two transitional housing projects will be granted allowances under the Anti-epidemic Fund.

Secretary for Transport and Housing, Frank Chan Fan, thanked Pok Oi Hospital and Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council Limited, the organisations responsible for the two facilities, for their efforts.

Separately, a new batch of 500,000 doses of Sinovac’s  CoronaVac vaccine was delivered to Hong Kong from Beijing on Monday, while the government announced that about a million extra doses of the Sinovac vaccine had been purchased.

Including earlier batches, about 8.5 million doses of the Sinovac jab have been purchased in total.

"Both Covid-19 vaccines available in Hong Kong are safe and highly effective in protecting against severe disease and death from Covid-19 infection,” said a government spokesperson. “The purchase of about 1 million extra doses of the CoronaVac vaccine aims to ease the gradually increasing public demand.”

He also urged people to get vaccinated as soon as possible so that medical staff and resources would not be overloaded.

“If we have to cater for third dose vaccination and those who delayed their first and second doses at the same time, it might be possible that both vaccination appointments and vaccines will be in tight supply," he added.