Mass testing

The team is part of the Hong Kong government's one-off, free testing program for groups considered to be at the highest risk of contracting or spreading the virus. The high-risk group includes staff from care homes. The government completed the first round of testing 32,600 staff members in 1,048 care homes by Aug 18. Only one infection was found.

Sunrise Diagnostic Centre and two other private test providers were invited to assist in large-scale tests. By Aug 8, they had conducted about 137,000 tests, finding 54 new cases.

Chik recalled the care home staff were "super happy and excited" when the test kits arrived. The virus has left many workers feeling anxious, but testing for individuals is very expensive, she added.

A caretaker at a disabled care home told China Daily, "The government's project (of testing care home staff) is really, really good. I am happy these young people have come to help us."

The program now has an even wider reach. Its goal is to provide weekly testing for all those in high-risk groups, and this has kept people like Chik busy ever since.

At the start of the mass testing in July, nurses and researchers were among the professionals sent to care homes to collect throat samples and take them back to the lab for testing. As sampling and testing becomes a repetitive task, people receiving the tests were given kits and taught how to do throat swabs on their own - a new task for researchers like Chik.

Those being tested were also told to keep the samples in Styrofoam boxes given to them so that the samples could still be cool when collected the next day.

Chik's personal life has entered a prolonged period that alternates between physical exhaustion and chronic tension.

"Before the pandemic, what we used to do in the lab was super routine, everything was foreseeable. When it happened, (it was like) we were being thrown into the fields to run in a race against time," she said.

The "most amazing thing" about the race, Chik said, is that every employee has made huge progress in their personal growth.

"We used techniques that had never been used before. We learned how to work with different departments. We have had to arrange schedules for tons of tasks. We have to talk to people - usually, you don't have to talk to many people when you're working in the lab. I don't think there are other opportunities like this," she said.