Macao’s health officials are pulling out all the stops to get the city’s children and senior citizens vaccinated against Covid-19.
Since yesterday, relatives of unjabbed senior citizens living in retirement homes must present a nucleic acid test (NAT) certificate confirming a negative Covid-19 result valid for 48 hours, when visiting them; relatives who have been inoculated must present an NAT certificate confirming a negative result valid for seven days, or a vaccination record confirming that they have received at least two Covid-19 jabs.
The Social Welfare Bureau also said on Wednesday that it has asked over 200 private social service facilities in the city to phone senior citizens, to ask them whether they have been vaccinated against the novel coronavirus and encourage unjabbed ones to get inoculated. Around 4,000 staff members and volunteers are now working for the campaign, which started on Wednesday.
Choi Sio Un, who heads the Social Solidarity Department of the Social Welfare Bureau, said that around 240 social service facilities are participating in the campaign, adding that so far they had made a phone call or sent an SMS to around 50,000 senior citizens or their family members.
Choi said that Macao has 24 retirement homes and other social service residential facilities for senior citizens, adding that around 41 per cent of senior citizen residents had received at least one Covid-19 jab as of yesterday, an increase of six percentage points from around 35 per cent a week ago.
Choi said that the increase was “encouraging”, but the 41-per cent jab rate was still “not ideal”.
According to Choi, 14 of the 24 retirement homes and other residential facilities for senior citizens are privately run while receiving a government subsidy, and that about 1,000 of their residents have still not been vaccinated. Choi said that only eight of the unjabbed senior citizens have been confirmed by doctors as being unsuitable to be inoculated against the novel coronavirus, indicating that the vast majority are physically able to get vaccinated.
Early last week schools started asking the parents of still unjabbed students to regularly report whether their children have already been inoculated against Covid-19.
Luís Gomes, acting chief of the Non-Tertiary Education Department of the Education and Youth Development Bureau, said that over 20,000 students aged between 3-11 have recently told their schools that they want to get vaccinated against Covid-19, adding that the government has already arranged for around 12,000 of them to receive their jabs as part of its collective Covid-19 vaccination programme.
Gomes also announced that the Macao Forum vaccination facility in ZAPE will only be used for inoculating schoolchildren aged between 3 and 11 tomorrow and Sunday, as part of the government’s campaign to boost their Covid-19 inoculation rate.
Gomes noted that Hong Kong has reported several fatalities of children infected with Covid-19, urging parents to take their children to get vaccinated against Covid-19 as soon as possible, The Macau Post Daily reported.
