Mainland Chinese officials and experts will meet their Hong Kong counterparts in the “coming days” in Shenzhen to discuss the best way to help the city fight a surging fifth wave of Covid-19 infections.

In a late-night statement on Thursday, the cabinet-level Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) said the central government was “highly concerned” about the city’s raging fifth wave. A spokesman said the meeting would discuss measures to support Hong Kong’s efforts to contain the outbreak and guarantee mainland supplies to the city.

A Beijing-based source said the meeting could be held as early as Saturday and the mainland was preparing to send “thousands of medical and lab personnel and millions of testing kits” to come to Hong Kong’s rescue.

“The HKMAO, Hong Kong liaison office, National Health Commission, Guangdong and Shenzhen officials will join Hong Kong senior officials to go through Hong Kong’s wish list and decide on the best way going forward,” the source said.

“The first step will be beefing up Hong Kong’s testing capability. Contact tracing, quarantine measures will also be discussed.”

He said the Hong Kong team would be led by Chief Secretary John Lee Ka-chiu.

Mainland authorities are also deploying more manpower at border checkpoints to speed up the processing of cross-border trucks to ease the crunch in vegetable and fresh food supplies, after Shenzhen officials confirmed seven drivers had tested positive for Covid-19 as of Monday.

A Hong Kong insider familiar with the situation said the city government was drawing up a list of areas requiring the mainland’s support.

“The list includes sending mainland personnel to ramp up testing capacity, help in setting up another quarantine facility,” the insider said. “The Hong Kong government also hopes mainland experts can offer advice on contact tracing.”

The Beijing-based source said the central government was ready to respond to the city’s request for help in fighting the outbreak.

“When we get a detailed list from the Hong Kong government, we will source and deliver the resources to Hong Kong,” the official said.

“We will focus on boosting Hong Kong’s testing capacity by sending support teams to speed up the operation of labs, while a few million testing kits are ready in Shenzhen to be sent to Hong Kong … We have readily available resources to build up high quality quarantine facilities in Hong Kong.”

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor last Friday said she had sought help from the Beijing and Guangdong governments, especially on boosting testing capacity.

The city’s daily coronavirus screening capacity would be increased from 100,000 tests to 300,000, partly by re-establishing a laboratory at Ma On Shan sports centre, she said.

Hong Kong is aiming to boost its testing capacity.

Mainland medical professionals had come to Hong Kong in recent weeks to assist with testing in existing laboratories, and more would arrive to help in the Ma On Shan lab, she added.

With help from the mainland’s medical professionals, Hong Kong launched a free mass-testing programme for its more than 7 million residents in September 2020 in the hope of tracking down invisible transmission chains amid the third wave of infections.

A 600-member mainland support team was sent to Hong Kong to operate lab facilities for the programme. About 1.7 million people were screened and only 45 cases were found.

Beijing is also preparing to help Hong Kong ramp up its quarantine facilities if the current capacity becomes inadequate, according to the mainland official.

A source working for Shenzhen’s checkpoint authorities said the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office had initiated several meetings with officials from the Guangdong provincial and Shenzhen municipal governments in the past few days to address the disruption of food supplies from the mainland to Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has had problems getting vegetable supplies from the mainland.

“We have expanded the list of cross-border truck drivers to make up for those who have been infected or quarantined,” the source said.

“More checkpoint officials have been called back to speed up the processing of the cross-border trucks and testing of drivers. The task given to us is to restore the volume of food supplies to Hong Kong.”

The source said from Thursday, those who did not provide bookings for Shenzhen’s quarantine hotels before crossing the border would be sent back.

Vegetable supplies in Hong Kong took a hit on Monday after dozens of drivers were stuck at Man Kam To Control Point, the city’s major gateway for fresh goods, as authorities conducted disinfection measures.

Hong Kong confirmed 986 new Covid-19 infections on Thursday, with just one of them imported. The official tally stands at 18,794 cases.

Meanwhile, a Hong Kong government spokesman on Thursday said the supply of vegetables from the mainland had generally “returned to a normal level” as operations at boundary control points had resumed.

“According to the latest information on wholesale markets, the supply of vegetables from the mainland has returned to about 90 per cent of that in the same period of previous years,” the spokesman said, adding that the overall supply was expected to return to stable levels, with a gradual fall in price.

Food for Good, a charity which works to reduce food waste through recycling and redistribution, said its long-term working partner, Chinese Fresh Food Chain Qiandama, had donated seven tons of vegetables to the organisation hoping to help those in need and to stabilise vegetable prices.

A spokeswoman for the charity said the donations consisted of more than 70 types of vegetables and it planned to use them in preparing free hot meals for the needy, to be distributed at 23 locations.

Seven tons of vegetables accounted for roughly 3.6 per cent of the 190 tons of market throughput in Cheung Sha Wan wholesale vegetable market on Wednesday.