More tests needed for vaccinated workers: expert

A specialist in respiratory medicine, Dr Leung Chi-chiu, on Thursday partially backed the government’s move to boost Covid testing for various groups of workers, saying there’s an increasing need to check whether those who are vaccinated are carrying the virus.

The government says staff at places including quarantine facilities, container terminals and cold stores will have to be tested for Covid every three days if they are inoculated, or every day if they aren’t.

Leung said more frequent tests are necessary to avoid vaccinated workers bringing Covid into the community, but it would be safer for those who are unjabbed to be excluded from high-risk jobs altogether.

“With vaccination, there is increasing need for this regular testing for those with regular exposure to the dangerous virus, because vaccination tends to decrease the symptoms and many vaccinated persons may be asymptomatic. If you do not test, you may not be able to pick [infections] up,” he said.

“For those who for whatever reason cannot be vaccinated, it may be better to exclude them from these high-risk duties, rather than testing them every day. That is resource intensive as well as not one hundred percent foolproof, because there is still a chance of false negatives.”