Sixty-seven Covid-19 infections were confirmed on Thursday, setting a new single-day record for Hong Kong. All but four of the new patients are believed to have contracted the virus locally, the majority from unknown sources. Vicky Wong reports:

Infectious disease experts are calling on the government to further tighten measures to curb the growing community outbreak of Covid-19. They are also urging it to take the lead in again promoting work from home as infections grow. Wendy Wong reports:

The Chief Executive, Carrie Lam, says she has to address the political turmoil that's gripped Hong Kong for more than a year now in her October policy address. In an interview with Hong Kong Open TV, she singled out the political impasse here as the main obstacle to solving livelihood issues. Robert Kemp reports:

In Thursday’s interview with Hong Kong Open TV, Chief Executive Carrie Lam said she would still push ahead with development plans, including her “Lantau Tomorrow Vision”, which she first raised in her 2018 policy address. The idea is to build 1,700-hectares of artificial islands for residential and economic development. Friday is the last day of the current Legco term, and the controversial mega-reclamation project is on the Finance Committee's agenda, or at least a HK$550 million funding request for studies of the project. But engineer Albert Lai, of the Professional Commons, told Mike Weeks that given the current unprecedented pandemic-driven recession, even this should now be shelved:

Members of the pro-Beijing DAB party staged a protest outside the US Consulate in Central on Thursday, to condemn what they see as Washington's interference in Hong Kong affairs, following President Trump's revocation of the SAR's special status and signing of the Hong Kong Autonomy Act. DAB lawmaker Holden Chow told Vennie Choi that Washington's criticism of the new national security law is nothing more than a smear campaign:

Executive councillor and barrister Ronny Tong says he doesn't see how the opposition camp's recent primaries to select candidates for September’s Legislative Council elections breach the national security law. Mainland officials have accused the pan-democrats of trying to seize control of the legislature to paralyse the government and subvert state power. Tong says the primaries could breach the fairness of the upcoming elections, as some candidates may not properly declare their election expenses. But he told Jimmy Choi he doesn't think the organisers or the candidates involved committed any crime under the security law:

After Hong Kong’s national security law was enacted more than two weeks ago, IT practitioners expressed concerns that the legislation would effectively give authorities the power to censor online content, increasing threats to cyber privacy and security. Under the law, police can remove online content deemed to be endangering national security and demand service providers reveal who is behind online material. But has it really had such a chilling effect? Janice Wong asked IT expert Anthony Lai, the founder of Valkyrie-X Security Research: