Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor meets the press at Central Government Offices in Hong Kong on Dec 15, 2020. (CALVIN NG / CHINA DAILY)

HONG KONG - Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor warned that the city’s “still-serious” fourth wave of COVID-19 outbreak could yet take a turn for the worse although daily infection numbers hadn't risen exponentially in recent days. 

Lam said her government planned to apply to the Legislative Council for a fourth tranche of anti-epidemic funding before the Christmas holidays

Speaking to reporters ahead of a customary meeting of her Executive Council on Tuesday, Lam appealed to residents not to drop their guards and stay at home as much as they could during the upcoming holiday season.

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Lam said her government planned to apply to the Legislative Council for a fourth tranche of anti-epidemic funding before the Christmas holidays in order to help businesses affected by the COVID-19 curbs. 

The city recorded more than 600 cases during each of the past three weeks, although the number has slightly dropped recently. Hong Kong logged 82 new COVID-19 infections on Monday, including 37 untraceable local cases, second only to 41 cases of an unknown origin recorded on Sunday.

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The Hong Kong government announced on Friday that the first batch comprising 1 million shots of coronavirus vaccines, developed by Beijing-based Sinovac Biotech, will be shipped to Hong Kong next month at the earliest. 

Lam criticized people who were trying to stigmatize or politicize the purchase and eventual use of vaccines, iterating that vaccine procurement had been done scientifically and that the process had been vetted by medical experts.