Press Release - May 1, 2003

Following is the transcript of the remarks made by the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), Mr Tung Chee Hwa, at the Labour Day Reception in Hong Kong this afternoon (May 1):

Mr Tung: I was carried away by what I was saying. I was saying that today is Labour Day. I should be addressing labour issue, but what the whole community is concerned about is what we are doing with SARS, so my whole talk was about SARS. The point I have made is that SARS is a huge battle for all of us and we have no choice but to fight and win this battle.

I just came back from Bangkok where I met with the Premier and the leaders of ASEAN nations as well as the Director of WHO from Geneva. All of them told us that what we had done over the past seven weeks - the decisions we had made, the policies we had been following, they were good ones and that this had been showing through in the results: the numbers are going down and stabilising at a much lower level. But I think it is important to remember this is a new virus. There is a lot we still don't understand. We should not let up. We should keep up our vigilance. There is so much work that still needs to be done because if there are more than 10 [new cases a day], right now it is sometimes 15, sometimes 18 and today is 11. When we have double-digit numbers, even low-teens, these numbers are not acceptable. When we have two or three or five frontline medical workers affected, these numbers are not acceptable. We must really work hard to make sure these numbers continue to come down. Medical frontline workers should not be affected and for others the number should be single digit. That would be my first objective over the next few weeks and we are going to get there.

I closed my talk just now in Chinese by saying that our thanks went to all frontline workers, particularly medical frontline workers who had really given everything to the community, together with us to fight this great battle. On this day of Labour Day, I want to take this opportunity to thank them as well as all the others for their efforts. Thank you all very much.

For updated information and latest news on respiratory tract infections, please visit the special home page on the subject at www.info.gov.hk/info/infection-e.htm, and the HKSAR Department of Health website at www.info.gov.hk/dh/ap.htm as well as the e-bulletin at www.news.gov.hk/en/index.shtml.