Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) Carrie Lam said on Saturday that elderly care homes and their residents will be a focus in Hong Kong's COVID-19 control efforts in the ongoing epidemic and future waves.

After taking into account the advice of mainland experts, Hong Kong has focused its anti-epidemic work on reducing deaths in confirmed cases, severe cases, and infections since early March, and prioritized the care for the elderly, Lam told a news conference.

She said that for the ongoing fifth wave of infections and any new waves in the future, it is necessary to better protect the elderly care homes and the senior citizens, and one of the most important things to do is to raise the vaccination rate.

At present, the first-dose vaccination rate is 56 percent in residents at the elderly care homes, and about 40 percent of these people have failed to get vaccinated due to their past infection with the virus.

The chief executive said medical teams are expected to visit the homes again in the coming month to give the first dose of vaccine to the recovered elderly and the second dose to those who have already received one dose.

On Saturday, Hong Kong registered a total of 8,841 new COVID-19 infections, including 3,884 by nucleic acid tests and 4,957 additional cases through self-reported rapid antigen tests, official data showed. The daily caseload dropped below the 10,000 mark for the first time since late February.

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