Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Health, Professor Lo Chung-mau, at a media session after attending a radio programme today (September 17):
 
Reporter: Is it true that the fatality rate has dropped to 0.1 per cent since May? Why aren't Government measures based on this?
 
Secretary for Health: Fatality rate is not the only factor that our policy depends on. There are other things we have to consider. The most important one is the pressure that our healthcare system faces during this pandemic. The total deaths of COVID-19 this year, in 2022, has exceeded 9 000. We cannot just look at the past three months. This is the first thing. On the other hand, the total number of admission right now, still exceeds 350 every day. Every day more than 350 COVID-19 patients are admitted to our public healthcare system, and there are nearly 2 800 COVID-19 patients in our public healthcare system, which are amongst over 15 per cent of our total number of acute beds. Our Hospital Authority is still on 3A response level to the COVID-19, which actually started on August 23. It has been getting to almost one month now. The implication is that because of this large number of COVID-19 patients in our healthcare system, our overall healthcare service has been reduced. At one point it was about 40 per cent cut in our healthcare service. This is a very serious implication because nearly 90 per cent of our citizens depends on the public healthcare system. For those who have not been in a public hospital, they may not appreciate that, but if you need the public healthcare service, then your health will be affected. It is not just the emergency service, but other so-called elective services, if there is a delay, for example, a patient who has potential cancer gets a delay in a consultation and possibly the diagnosis investigation, then the treatment outcome will be worse. We have to understand, before the COVID-19, Hong Kong is already facing extreme pressure on the public healthcare system and our waiting time is pretty long, and at the same time, the recent wastage of our healthcare professionals, the staff attrition rate, is on a high side. These are things that we have to consider, so it is not just the snapshot fatality rate in the last three months that we consider.
 
Reporter: Is there any indication when Hong Kong can return to some kind of normalcy?
 
Secretary for Health: The policy, the government strategy, is to resume international connection as soon as possible. This is always on our strategy list.
 
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)

Ends/Saturday, September 17, 2022
Issued at HKT 13:39

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