Free Covid Tests for All Hong Kong Teachers

This article is part of an editorial series on Covid-19

All teachers and staff in Hong Kong's kindergartens, primary, secondary and special schools will now be offered free Covid-19 tests. In addition to the free testing arranged for individual high-risk groups such as staff of boarding sections of special schools in July this year, the Education Bureau has announced that starting from next Monday (November 9) all school staff will be offered free testing on a voluntary basis.

The EDB plans to test about 2% of teaching and non-teaching staff in Hong Kong a day, with plans to eventually test all 130,000 school staff in the city.

A spokesman for the EDB said: 

"Taking into consideration that schools are places where people gather and school staff are high-exposure groups, as a precautionary measure, the EDB will extend the COVID-19 Targeted Group Testing Scheme (TGTS) to conduct extensive and continuous surveillance at the level of teachers and staff of kindergartens (including kindergarten-cum-child care centres) and primary and secondary schools during autumn and winter.

"This will not only help detect confirmed cases and cut the transmission chains in the community, but also provide data for reference for the overall assessment of the epidemic situation."