Two batches of mainland health experts have arrived in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) to work with the HKSAR government in fighting the latest COVID-19 outbreak, a health official said on Saturday.

The central government will continue to support Hong Kong in epidemic prevention and control, with mainland experts continually working closely with their Hong Kong counterparts, National Health Commission official Wu Liangyou said at a press conference.

A record 17,063 new COVID-19 cases and 66 deaths were recorded in the past 24 hours in the city of 7.4 million, Hong Kong's Health Secretary Sophia Chan said on Saturday, according to Reuters.

The soaring cases came after infections topped 6,000 last week and 8,000 earlier this week in a spiraling outbreak.

"We're in a very dire situation," Chan said, noting the scale of the outbreak is unprecedented and the peak is yet to arrive.

Hong Kong health authorities said on Saturday that they would adjust COVID-19 testing procedures to allow some people to test from home in a bid to ease long queues at designated testing centers.

Chan said some 1.3 million rapid testing kits would be handed out to those in higher risk areas and jobs, and people testing positive would have to register their results online.

(With input from Xinhua and Reuters)