Arrivals from Brazil and Nepal will have to spend 28 days in quarantine – up from three weeks – under new emergency measures introduced today.
The Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre decided to increase the quarantine period “due to the latest development of the two countries’ Covid-19 epidemic situations”.
The Macau Post Daily reported that health authorities have declared that recent arrivals from Brazil or Nepal who have not so far completed their 21-day hotel quarantine will have to stay an additional seven days in their guestrooms.
Five out of 10 passengers who flew in on a chartered flight from Nepal yesterday tested positive for the novel coronavirus in their antibody tests.
Four of the five tested negative for Covid-19 in a nucleic acid test (NAT), but the NAT result of the fifth one was “inconclusive” so a follow-up test will be required today.
The Health Bureau (SSM) “has not ruled out the possibility” that the individual had previously been infected with the novel coronavirus and had recovered elsewhere but “has now tested positive for the virus again”.
The SSM has concluded that the four passengers who tested negative for Covid-19 in their NAT but positive for the virus in their antibody tests yesterday had previously been infected with the novel coronavirus and had recovered elsewhere.
The other five passengers on the flight from Nepal tested negative for Covid-19 in both nucleic acid tests and antibody tests yesterday.
However, all 10 passengers have been transferred to the SSM’s Public Health Clinical Centre in Coloane for follow-up medical examinations.
