HKU microbiologist doubts effect of mass Covid-19 testing

In an interview with RTHK on Tuesday, Dr Siddharth Sridhar from HKU’s Department of Microbiology doubted the effectiveness of the mass Covid-19 virus testing that the government planned to roll out as soon as next week, as it is not compulsory and Hong Kong is not under full lockdown.

He saw this more as an attempt to improve the city’s test availability, and might achieve some effects that an universal testing would perform.

“How many people actually take up the offer is yet to be seen. I would think that the mentality would be: hey, if I don’t have symptoms and I only have one free test I don’t want to waste the mass test, in a way,” Sridhar told RTHK.

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