As ‪at 8pm today (October 15), specimens had been collected from a total of 11 865 persons at Wan Chai, Kwai Tsing, Kowloon City and Yau Tsim Mong Temporary Testing Centres set up by the Government for COVID-19 nucleic acid tests. The four temporary testing centres will continue to provide service to members of the public tomorrow (October 16).  After reviewing the usage of the temporary testing centres and public's demand for the testing service, the Government has decided to extend the operation period of the Yau Tsim Mong Temporary Testing Centre to October 18.  The other three temporary testing centres will cease operation after October 16.
      
     Specimens from 789 persons were collected today at the Wan Chai Temporary Testing Centre located at Harbour Road Sports Centre.
      
     Specimens from 600 persons were collected today at the Kwai Tsing Temporary Testing Centre located at Shek Lei Community Hall.
      
     Specimens from 495 persons were collected today at the Kowloon City Temporary Testing Centre located at Kai Tak Community Hall.
      
     Specimens from 1 305 persons were collected today at the Yau Tsim Mong Temporary Testing Centre located at Henry G Leong Yaumatei Community Centre.
      
     A Government spokesman said that in view of the worsening COVID-19 epidemic situation in Hong Kong, the Government has 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, Kwai Tsing and Kowloon City Temporary Testing Centres will open till October 16 while the Yau Tsim Mong Temporary Testing Centre will continue to open till October 18.  The temporary testing centres will be open from 8am to 1.30pm and ‪2.30pm to 8pm to provide free specimen collection and testing services 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.
      
     As ‪at 10pm today, a total of 8 676 specimens collected under the temporary community testing arrangement had been tested. If any specimen tested shows a positive COVID-19 result, the specimen will be referred to the Public Health Laboratory Services Branch of the Department of Health (DH) for a confirmatory test. Confirmed cases will be followed up and announced by the Centre for Health Protection of the DH.
      
     Moreover, to facilitate more members of the public to receive COVID-19 tests, distribution time of the deep throat saliva specimen collection packs 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. The 46 HA GOPCs distributed a total of over 1 800 specimen collection packs on October 15.
      
     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/Thursday, October 15, 2020
Issued at HKT 23:00

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