Last updated: 22 July 2022 at 7:30 am
All Philippine passport holders including Macao residents – believed to number about 32,000 – will be required to take a daily nucleic acid test (NAT) starting from today.
All people going to work from Saturday onwards will also be required to take a NAT every two days.
Starting on Saturday, when the city enters into a “consolidation phase”, everyone in Macao will have to conduct self-rapid antigen tests every day, including infants under 36 months old. Children, the elderly and the disabled must upload the results onto the declaration platform, otherwise their health codes will turn yellow.
Leong Iek Hou, Head of the Health Bureau’s Communicable Disease Prevention and Control Division, said that 171 of Macao’s 1,795 confirmed Covid-19 cases have been Philippine passport holders (not including Macao residents), so the Filipino community has been classified as a key group with a high infection rate, raising the number of key groups to eight. Domestic helpers who live with their employers are also required to test daily.
Around 35,000 people who live in key areas including Rua do Seminario, Rua da Praia do Manduco, Camões Garden and San Kio, or anyone who has stayed there for more than 30 minutes since 18 July will need to undergo a NAT every day between 22-24 July.
News of the new measure came as Macao announced its sixth Covid-19 related death – an unvaccinated 93-year-old man who died at 3 am today due to respiratory problems. He was diagnosed with pneumonia on 9 July and hospitalised, however his family declined medical treatment.
The 12th round of mass-testing in Macao turned up few surprises; by 3 pm today 589,014 people had been tested – one pooled sample tested positive and only one of the 10+1 samples was positive. Sixty-four patients were released from hospital, bringing the current outbreak’s total to 633. Just under 3,000 people remain in hotels under medical observation, and health workers are following up 22,396 cases.
Speaking at the daily Covid-19 briefing, Lei Wai Seng, Clinical Director of the Conde São Januário Hospital Centre, said: “We will gradually resume our normal services at the hospital but we will announce the details in due course. We don’t want to have to cope with a rush to the hospital because there will be too many people which could become dangerous.
“We will try to implement a new system for patients to receive their medication without needing to go to the hospital or a health centre. Patients will receive on-line information about their medicines which they will be allowed to collect from pharmacies.”
