Chief Executive Carrie Lam has praised the Hong Kong government’s mass testing program for COVID-19 as a success, despite finding only 32 new cases out of 1.78 million participants and shelling out an estimated HK$530 million (US$68.4 million).

Lam and one of her ministers, Secretary for Civil Service Patrick Nip, on Tuesday were effusive in their gratitude for the support of the central authorities, with Nip saying that Hong Kong would have had “no capacity” to conduct the citywide tests without Beijing’s backing.

The testing efforts were “unprecedented,” Lam said, thanking the 1.78 million residents who took part as well as the 6,500-strong medical team, which included 579 mainland Chinese medical workers sent by the National Health Commission.

“To have 1.78 million people voluntarily take part in a massive testing program is a very good result,” Lam said at a press conference. Less than a quarter of the city’s 7.5 million population participated in the tests.

Nip also felt the program met the principle of voluntary participation. It ran “smoothly” and achieved the aim of finding asymptomatic virus carriers and cutting off possible transmission chains in the community, he said.

Of the HK$530 million spent on the program, HK$370 million went toward the salaries of medical and supporting staff, Nip added.

Hong Kong’s two-week testing scheme to unearth hidden coronavirus carriers found 32 new cases, 20 of whom were infected by unknown sources. The infection rate was about two cases per 100,000 tested.

Asked about the cost-effectiveness of the massive effort, Lam said that it made “multiple contributions” to the anti-pandemic fight. “It is not easy, or actually it’s not quite right, to reflect or measure these benefits by the unit cost of a confirmed case.”

Lam also said that despite the “smearing and bad-mouthing,” the program’s participation rate was a “vote of trust” from the public. “We have seen people coming together,” she said.

The chief executive thanked a number of mainland Chinese bodies for supporting the testing, particularly the nucleic acid test support team, whose contribution was “very moving.”

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