UPDATES ON EPIDEMIC GIVEN REGULARLY

(To watch the full press conference with sign language interpretation, click here.)

Chief Executive Carrie Lam says she has been updating the consular and business communities on the epidemic situation since the battle against COVID-19 began in Hong Kong.

Mr Lam made the remarks at the daily press conference today, noting that these two communities form an important part of Hong Kong, and reflect its status as a prominent international centre with the need to stay connected with the outside world.

“Since the beginning of this fight against the epidemic, I have been sending monthly reports, personally signed-off monthly reports, to these two very important communities every month, because somehow most of the news are now reported in Chinese or Cantonese, so our two expatriate communities may not get the first-hand information about the work of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.”

The Chief Executive said she sent them the 24th report on February 28 when the city was in the second year of the anti-virus battle and added that many of the recipients gave their feedback to express their concern of the situation Hong Kong has been facing.

“There is a lot of common ground amongst the letters sent to me, I may as well give them a further supplementary piece of information through a letter to the same communities, that is members of the IBC and what we call the Heads of Post – Heads of Post refer to the Consulates-General as well as the heads of a number of international organisations in Hong Kong.”

The International Business Committee (IBC) is chaired by the Chief Secretary. Mrs Lam noted that while she held that post, she met the business chambers' heads frequently to give an update on Hong Kong's situation and to solicit their feedback.

“That is the purpose of my letter, and my letter actually recaps all the things that I have said in public, especially on this occasion, but to give them a consolidated picture is something that I find relevant and it may be regarded as useful.

“And actually, from yesterday afternoon, I had been given a lot of feedback that they were very grateful for the Chief Executive's letter. They found it most informative and encouraging, but they also looked forward to more concrete measures to be announced in due course.”

Mrs Lam also extended her gratitude to the hotel industry for converting the hotels they operate into community isolation facilities.

“You remember at the earlier stage they were being used as quarantine hotels. Quarantine hotels are for people who are not yet infected but they need to be quarantined in order to ensure that they are not bringing the virus into the community.”

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