More stringent measures relating to masking and social gatherings can be expected later this week.

The Ministry of Health says while most severe public health and social measures are based on changes in hospitalization data, the evidence is clear that we do need to keep up with measures to suppress transmission so that hospitalization numbers remain low.

Permanent Secretary for Health Doctor James Fong says the evidence suggests that Omicron causes less severe disease than other variants.

However, it infects a larger number of people in a shorter period of time, which means even if a smaller percentage of people become severely ill, it may still mean a large number requiring hospitalization, which will put pressure on the health system.

Dr. Fong says the Ministry has always promoted individual COVID safe measures, even during the period of local cases before the current outbreak.

However, more stringent community-level measures need to be put in place to further enforce the message they are promoting.