Compulsory Universal Testing (CUT) must be implemented with a lockdown

Mar 1, 2022

Considering the severity of the epidemic situation in Hong Kong, the DAB Legislative Council members (Election Committee) support the SAR Government in carrying out Compulsory Universal Testing (CUT) with the assistance of the nation and recommend the following measures:

1. In order to get better results, a lockdown should be imposed during CUT. Residents must stay at home except for going out for testing, or shopping at designated places, or seeking medical attention, and only designated industries or service providers should be allowed to open for business.

2. The SAR Government should deploy sufficient manpower to provide counselling to affected citizens and address their basic needs and emergencies.

3. The SAR government has to eliminate impacts on livelihood of the public by reducing the time required for compulsory testing.

4. The CUT appointment should be arranged on family basis at nearby testing centers to eliminate the risk of getting infected. The SAR Government should provide assistance to citizens on online registration, set up a care team, and deploy a special task force to collect specimen of elderly citizens who are not physically capable of going out.

5. The penalty of violating the compulsory testing should be increased from the current fine of $10,000 to $20,000 with a prison sentence to strengthen the deterrent effect of the law.

6. We are pleased to learn that the Central Government is going to deploy a team of 9,000 members to Hong Kong providing assistance in accelerating the construction of isolation facilities and mobile field hospitals in eight locations. We urge the SAR Government to activate the relevant facilities as soon as possible, use local hotels and take advantage of the testing capacity in the mainland to implement the Compulsory Universal Testing scheme. We also suggest the SAR Government borrow and convert charity and religious premises, campsites for youth groups, LCSD facilities such as museums, libraries, sports centres, community halls or centres of the Home Affairs Department, schools, newly constructed and vacant units in public rental housing estates into temporary isolation facilities for infected persons with no or mild symptoms. The Government should ensure sufficient manpower and resources to transfer confirmed patients to isolation facilities in a timely manner.

7. We urge the SAR Government to immediately provide adequate protective gears for medical staff in public hospitals where effective prevention and control measures for nosocomial infection should be carried out.

8. We propose the Government to make good use of technology to speed up the process of CUT scheme and online booking. The Government should also seriously study the feasibility of adding a tracking function in "LeaveHomeSafe" and the launch of Health Code to prevent the spread of the epidemic and facilitate resumption of quarantine-free travel with the mainland in the future.

9. We suggest all residents to undergo a round of rapid antigen tests at home before the implementation of CUT scheme. The Government should follow up positive cases immediately to avoid cross-infection risk during the CUT scheme.

The epidemic situation in Hong Kong is severe and urgent. We hope all sectors of the society will cherish and value this opportunity for the CUT to ameliorate the current situation.