9:00am-9:25am: river pollutions

9:00am-9:25am: Kenneth Leung is the Director of State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollu-tion; Chair Professor, City University of Hong Kong’s Department of Chemistry

9:25am-9:30am: latest on Winter Olympics

9:25am-9:30am: Atom Cheung, RTHK sports reporter

On Wednesday’s Covid Update, and Backchat: the latest on the pandemic; and pharmaceutical pollution in rivers.

As Hong Kong faces a shortage of medical and isolation facilities, Chief Executive Carrie Lam unveiled plans to house infected Covid-19 patients in newly built public housing flats and hotels.

About 3,000 flats at two new public housing estates and up to 10,000 hotel rooms will be used to isolate Covid-19 patients amid the surging fifth wave of infection. Mrs Lam also said there would be designated clinics to treat patients with milder symptoms.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong reported 1,619 confirmed new local infections on Tuesday, with about 5,400 preliminary cases recorded.

After 9, we'll be talking about a global study that found pollution of rivers from medicines and pharmaceutical products poses a threat to environmental and global health.