Hong Kong – Transcript of remarks by S for Health at media session

     Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Health, Professor Lo Chung-mau, at a media session after attending an event this morning (December 11):
 
Reporter: Can you recap what are the functions of the “LeaveHomeSafe” app? 
 
Secretary for Health: The “LeaveHomeSafe” has a very important function as our anti-pandemic measures. It serves as a measure for our Centre for Health Protection (of the Department of Heath) in contact tracing and also serves a function for individual citizens of Hong Kong to record the places they have visited, so that they can take measures to protect themselves. With the evolution of the pandemic, there are changes in various ways: the virus has mutated, our vaccination rate has increased, our immunity barrier has strengthened, so we may have to adjust some of the functions of the “LeaveHomeSafe” app. But I must emphasise that emerging infectious diseases are something we have to bear in mind: we had SARS before, we have various infectious diseases and we now have COVID-19 which is still evolving. So I would say that we may adjust the functions of the “LeaveHomeSafe” app, but I think the “LeaveHomeSafe” app is a very good app which has helped Hong Kong in the fight against the pandemic. Perhaps in the future we may still need to rely on the “LeaveHomeSafe” to fight against the other emerging infectious diseases. It is still a very good app.
 
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)