Hong Kong’s government made another plea for residents – including domestic helpers – to sign up for city-wide COVID-19 testing and dismissed criticism of the program as politically driven slander.

The call from Chief Secretary Mathew Cheung, the second-highest ranking official, came as the number of new cases tripled on Sunday from the day before. Five of the 21 new cases were unearthed through the Universal Community Testing Program. Three more deaths were reported on Sunday, taking the death toll to 97.

If necessary, the program could be extended by three days to Sept. 14, Cheung added.

Writing in his weekly blog on Sunday, Cheung condemned opponents of the program, accusing them of spreading inaccurate information to discourage the public from participating.

Some district councilors recently said they planned to raise motions to permanently shelve the program, which has sparked widespread and growing skepticism ranging from doubts over its effectiveness to concern at the handling of data. Adding to those worries is the involvement of mainland Chinese-owned laboratories.

“What [these politicians are] doing runs counter to the spirit of the whole city uniting to fight the epidemic,” Cheung wrote, adding that critics were letting “politics override public health” needs and insisted that their “willful slander” would not succeed.

The testing would help discover silent transmitters in the community and curb the outbreak, Cheung said, as well as helping to formulate a health code system that would enable travel and economic activity to resume between Hong Kong, Macao and Guangdong province.

Cheung also made a “special appeal” for the city’s around 400,000 foreign domestic helpers to participate, and for their employers to help with registration.

The call came as a 39-year-old Filipino domestic helper was one of two new cases on Saturday who had come to light through the voluntary testing program. The source of the infection remained unknown.

As of Sunday morning, 1.08 million people registered for the community testing program and 864,000 people had received results.

Ten carriers of the virus had been identified through the program, Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip said on Sunday.

Authorities have received 186 complaints of residents’ personal data being used to falsely register for the program, with 103 cases referred to police for follow-up, Nip said.

Health secretary Sophia Chan also defended the testing. Another wave of infections should be expected in winter and the data from the program could help control it, she said.

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