Mass testing programme for Covid-19 begins in Hong Kong

The virus-testing programme has become a flash point of political debate in Hong Kong (Kin Cheung/AP)

Hong Kong has begun a voluntary mass-testing programme for coronavirus as part of a strategy to break the chain of transmission in the city’s third outbreak of the disease.

The virus-testing scheme has become a flash point of political debate in Hong Kong, with distrust over resources and staff being provided by the China’s central government and fears DNA could be collected during the exercise.