Chief Executive Carrie Lam today expressed her gratitude to Legislative Council members for their support to the Government in fighting the fifth wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, saying that she would continue to lead the Government to join hands with all sectors of the community to overcome the disease in order for people's lives to resume normal as soon as possible.

The debate on the Motion of Thanks for the 2021 Policy Address is underway in LegCo, where the session on "Emerging from the Epidemic" ended today.

Mrs Lam said that since the outbreak of the fifth wave of the epidemic, LegCo members have raised suggestions to her as well as various bureaus and departments. During the first session of the debate held over the past two days, they further offered constructive views including how to leverage the central government's support.

This is testimony to the rational interaction between the executive and the legislative branches under the improved electoral system of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to achieve good governance, she noted.

The Chief Executive also sincerely thanked President Xi Jinping for his important instruction on the Hong Kong SAR's anti-epidemic efforts, Vice Premier of the State Council Han Zheng for conveying to her the concern and support of the central government, as well as the State Council's Hong Kong & Macao Affairs Office Director Xia Baolong for hosting a meeting in Shenzhen to co-ordinate the assistance for Hong Kong to fight the epidemic.

The Hong Kong SAR Government is now working closely with relevant ministries and commissions of the central authorities and the Guangdong Provincial Government. A number of epidemiological experts and testing technical personnel, together with two mobile testing vehicles, have arrived from the Mainland today to offer support.

Furthermore, Mrs Lam said she is deeply moved and encouraged knowing that various sectors of the community have joined the Government's anti-epidemic team in response to its appeal to work in concert with government personnel.

Regarding isolation facilities, the Chief Executive hosted an online webinar with the Federation of Hong Kong Hotel Owners and other hotel owners on February 16. So far, 21 hotels have expressed their intention to turn into community isolation facility (CIF) hotels, providing more than 11,000 rooms.

The Government will immediately assess the conditions of such hotels to ascertain their suitability and work on the contractual and handover arrangements as soon as possible.

More than 20,000 rooms have been identified that could potentially become CIF hotels, including some 4,400 rooms set to be in service soon and around 5,500 rooms of the hotels that are in negotiations with the Government. The figure has exceeded by a large margin the Government's original target of 7,000 to 10,000 rooms.

The first CIF hotel, Dorsett Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong, will start operating tomorrow.

Mrs Lam stated that she is also grateful for the positive response of the taxi industry, which has lined up a designated fleet of 300 taxis within a short period of time to provide transport services for patients who visit the Hospital Authority's designated clinics.

Meanwhile, the number of community vaccination centres will increase to 23 by the end of this month, scaling up the average daily vaccination capacity to over 85,000 doses.

The Government is also pleased to note that the number of doses administered in private clinics has significantly risen these days, peaking at about 40,000 doses per day.

For the elderly living in residential care homes, the Government is mobilising more healthcare workers and will streamline the health assessment and vaccination procedures to boost the jab rate at full steam in the coming weeks.

In addition to emphasising that the Government will assume the main responsibility to stabilise the epidemic situation early as the overriding mission at present, Mrs Lam appealed to the public to stay confident and support the Government's anti-epidemic work.