HONG KONG- Hong Kong needs to take measures and learn from the mainland's experience in preventing further outbreaks of COVID-19 so as to better protect people's health, allow them to travel freely and resume economic activities, the city's financial chief said on Sunday.

The recent number of confirmed cases on the mainland clearly reflects the effectiveness of normalizing epidemic prevention and control, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po wrote in his blog

Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po wrote in his blog that there has been a spike in new cases of COVID-19 worldwide recently. As for the Chinese mainland, the recent number of confirmed cases clearly reflects the effectiveness of normalizing epidemic prevention and control.

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The mainland's approach is to identify symptomatic or asymptomatic infected people through large-scale, designated population-wide testing, which is an effective way to cut the chain of transmission. They also introduced the "health QR code" to enable uninfected people to travel and carry out economic activities to the greatest extent through a set of risk assessment and identification mechanisms, he said.

For more than half a year, Hong Kong people and businesses have been under high pressure and there is a need for Hong Kong to develop a mechanism that can quickly respond to sudden cluster outbreaks, Chan said, adding that the mass screening of COVID-19 conducted earlier in Hong Kong can help Hong Kong to set up a response mechanism that fits the local situation.

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He said it is hoped that Hong Kong's economy can be improved when it resumes personnel and economic exchanges with the mainland and other regions, provided that the COVID-19 epidemic in Hong Kong is also effectively controlled.