Alfred Sit defends suspension of LeaveHomeSafe alerts

Innovation and technology minister Alfred Sit on Tuesday defended the authorities’ decision to stop notifying people via the LeaveHomeSafe app if they’ve been to the same places at around the same time with any Covid patients.

“In the past, in order to have a watertight measure to keep the virus at bay, when we found out that a confirmed Covid patient had visited the same place at the same time as a LeaveHomeSafe app user, we would send them an alert and require them to get tested,” he told a Metro Radio programme.

“But… Hong Kong already has tens of thousands of infections per day and they have been to many places. If people still receive the infection risk notification on the LeaveHomeSafe app and get tested, our precious and relatively stretched testing resources may be used where they are not most needed.”

Sit said exceptional times called for exceptional measures, and appealed for the public not to question the latest practice.