Since the launch of the Universal Community Testing Programme (UCTP) on Sep. 1, about 1.5 million people have completed the sampling process, among which only 19 new cases have been found. If the Hong Kong population is estimated at 7.5 million, it means that there are less than 100 invisible carriers of the virus in Hong Kong. This result is undoubtedly expected, since most Hongkongers are taking epidemic preventions very seriously, especially during the outbreaks, where the ratio of people wearing masks easily tops the world. This was indeed effective in reducing the chain of transmission. Judging from the drop of confirmed cases in the past few days to only a few cases currently, the epidemic is clearly under control. For Hongkongers, this is great news.

Carrie Lam’s implementation of UCTP was met with much controversy in society. For example, because only 20% of Hong Kong’s population was tested, it reflects that the collection of information regarding invisible carriers is not too comprehensive. In addition, with only 19 new confirmed cases found through UCTP, it shows that the timing of this launch of universal testing is inappropriate, particularly when the epidemic was already under control. Splurging on manpower and resources to track a limited number of invisible virus carriers is definitely not cost-effective and a waste of public funds.

I have expressed my reservations about the effectiveness of universal testing for quite some time. Luxembourg had launched a nine-week universal testing program at the end of May this year, but the result was that the epidemic did not get under control. A month after the initiative was launched, the epidemic situation did not get better. According to information from Luxembourg’s public health department, the cumulative number of confirmed cases from Jul. 1 to Sep. 9 this year was 3,458, 50% of the total number of confirmed cases. It can be inferred that universal testing did not stop the spread of the epidemic.

In fact, countries other than Luxembourg have also launched universal testing programs. Four small European countries, including Andorra, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, and Monaco, have employed similar anti-epidemic measures, but none has been able to fully control the epidemic. From the experience of these several countries and regions, the effectiveness of universal testing is indeed questionable. However, I am not opposed to the government’s implementation of large-scale testing programs, but such testing programs must be targeted towards high-risk groups in order to achieve the desired results. As for the temporary testing centers, the government could preserve part of these venues for voluntary testing, because there are some citizens who are willing to be tested to protect their health.

Based on my careful study of the local epidemic situation, and judging from the number of new cases, there were only two outbreaks so far, one from mid-March to mid-April this year, and another from July to August. If “Symmetric S Curve” in epidemiology is used to estimate the changes in the epidemic, it turns out that this curve has a fairly high predictive ability. Looking at the development of the epidemic in these two months, the S-curve shows that the epidemic has gradually been under control three weeks ago, and it has been predicted that the number of newly confirmed cases will drop to a single digit in early September. If there is yet another outbreak of COVID, the SAR government may wish to use this infectious disease tracking curve to analyze the epidemic to ensure its correct understanding of the changes in the epidemic.

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

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