Temporary testing centres provide free testing service to public
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Specimens from 619 persons were collected today at the Wan Chai Temporary Testing Centre located at Harbour Road Sports Centre, which opened from from 8am to 1.30pm and 2.30pm to 8pm while specimens from 707 persons were collected today at the Kwai Tsing Temporary Testing Centre located at Shek Lei Community Hall, which opened from 1pm to 8pm.
As at 10pm today, a total of 518 specimens collected under the temporary community testing arrangement had been tested. If there is any specimen tested with positive COVID-19 result, it will be referred to the Public Health Laboratory Services Branch of the Department of Health (DH) for confirmatory test. Confirmed cases will be followed up and announced by the Centre for Health Protection of the DH.
A Government spokesman said that in view of the worsening epidemic situation in Hong Kong, the Government decided to set up one temporary testing centre in each of the four districts, namely Wan Chai, Kwai Tsing, Kowloon City and Yau Tsim Mong Districts, which are related to recent community outbreak clusters. The Wan Chai and Kwai Tsing Temporary Testing Centres commenced operation yesterday and today respectively while the Kowloon City and Yau Tsim Mong Temporary Testing Centres will commence operation at 8am tomorrow (October 12).
The Kowloon City Temporary Testing Centre is located at Kai Tak Community Hall, 3 Concorde Road, Kai Tak. The Yau Tsim Mong Temporary Testing Centre is located at Henry G Leong Yaumatei Community Centre, 60 Public Square Street, Yau Ma Tei.
All four temporary testing centres will be open from 8am to 1.30pm and 2.30pm to 8pm every day, until October 14 tentatively, to provide free specimen collection and testing service to facilitate proactive testing of members of the public, in order to identify cases and asymptomatic patients as early as possible so as to cut the transmission chains in the community.
Moreover, to facilitate more members of the public to receive COVID-19 tests, the deep throat saliva specimen collection packs distribution time at the 46 general outpatient clinics (GOPCs) of the Hospital Authority (HA) has been extended to 9am to 1pm and 2pm to 5pm from Monday to Friday, since October 9. Over 3 000 specimen collection packs were distributed on the first day of extended distribution time in the 46 HA GOPCs. Since July 27, HA GOPCs have distributed over 63 000 specimen collection packs. Over 38 000 specimens were tested by the laboratory, and over 60 were positive for COVID-19.
Furthermore, the second round of testing services provided to frontline staff of catering businesses by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) under the Targeted Group Testing Scheme commenced on October 1. Up to October 10, over 12 000 specimen bottles have been distributed to catering premises and over 3 800 specimens have been tested. The FEHD has arranged a testing agency to deliver specimen bottles at bar areas and a mobile van will be parked near the bar areas for three consecutive nights starting from October 9 to encourage personnel in bars and pubs and their patrons to undergo the voluntary testing. The testing agency distributed a total of 1 286 specimen bottles in the past two nights. Among them, 991 specimen bottles (included in the over 12 000 specimen bottles mentioned above) were distributed to staff members and 295 were distributed to patrons.
The spokesman appealed to all members of the public who have doubts about their health condition to undergo testing to protect oneself and others and to fight the virus together.
Ends/Sunday, October 11, 2020
Issued at HKT 23:29
Issued at HKT 23:29
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