The Universal Community Testing Programme (UCTP) started on Tuesday, Sep. 1, and as of 2 p.m. on Thursday, Sep. 3, 128,000 citizens have completed the test, six of whom have been tested positive. However, four of them were previously confirmed cases and have left the hospital. Therefore, only two of them are new cases found by the program.

When only two out of the 128,000 citizens who have completed the test are confirmed cases, that means there are an estimated 117 asymptomatic patients spreading the virus within the community. Hong Kong’s population is 7.5 million so 117 are not a lot, some of whom might even already possess antibodies. So there are not actually many people who really are spreading the virus.

It is true that COVID-19 is highly infectious, and because some infected people have no symptoms, which makes it pretty hard to prevent the virus from spreading. However, according to the information from the World Health Organization (WHO), as long as we wash our hands frequently, wear a mask, keep social distance, gather in groups less frequently and the government increases the number of tests, the possibility of COVID-19 having a big outbreak within the community is very low. Therefore, there is no need to worry about this “global big trend” too much.

Can UCTP really break down or minimize the hidden local transmission chain? Yes, but it has to be compulsory and implemented along with stay at home order. But Hong Kong is an international finance center, it is impractical and impossible to force 4 million working population to stay at home. Therefore, compulsory testing should not be enforced. If it is done on a voluntary basis, it would need a high participation rate for the program to work, otherwise it would just be a complete waste.

As of 1 p.m. on Thursday, Sep. 3, there are in total approximately 850,000 citizens registered to the program, much fewer than estimated. The main reason being is that the epidemic is now under control: the confirmed cases in the past two days have gone down to single digits, much lower than the peak time of over a hundred cases per day. This shows that the epidemic is nearly over. I guess within one to two weeks, there will be zero confirmed cases. Then we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

With all the money and manpower the government has invested in this program, plus the backing from “Grandpa” (Beijing / Xi Jinping), but only two new confirmed cases were caught. This is not cost-effective at all. Although Professor Yuen Kwok-yung said this is expected, he believes “better to have caught some than none,” and the test “does have some use.” From a medical standpoint, Professor Yuen is right, because to fight an epidemic, the best is always to catch all the infected people, however, the program is not compulsory and there is no stay at home order. Although two infected persons were found, the other asymptomatic patients can still be spreading the virus during this time. Many citizens have therefore questioned how much this program helps to fight the epidemic. We should also be aware, cost effectiveness is a very important factor to be considered when spending public money, especially Carrie Lam is the type of person who has a spending hobby, she should not be allowed to have yet another spending spree. From the perspective of managing public finance, the government should abide by the financial discipline, otherwise the government’s fiscal reserve will soon be emptied out!

(Kwan Cheuk Chiu, economist, director of ACE Centre for Business and Economic Research)

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