Thirty-six positive Covid-19 cases had been discovered in Macao by 5 pm today following the sudden outbreak at the weekend, the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre has announced. The travel itineraries of infected patients have now been released on the Health Bureau’s Special Webpage Against Epidemics (available in Chinese only).
The patients include 25 women and 11 men, ranging in age from 8 months to 89 years old; among the 36 people, 10 are classified as symptomatic and 26 asymptomatic. Patient zero has still not been found.
The Centre stated that the daughter of a confirmed patient is studying at Sacred Heart Kindergarten, so the affected child needs to be placed under medical observation. It is believed that the child has been in contact with other students during after school activities.
In addition, the wife of a confirmed Covid-19 infected patient is a teacher at Hou Kong Primary School. Therefore, it is estimated that over 100 students may have been affected after coming into contact with her. The government will evaluate the teacher’s class and decide who needs to be quarantined. So far, 300 people related to both schools have been placed under medical observation.
Over 459,687 nucleic acid tests have been administered so far (about 67 per cent of the population); of these, 269,628 have tested negative for Covid-19.
In response to the 36 positive cases, the authorities followed up 946 people; they included 201 who were close contacts, 580 with a common track, 84 close contacts, 32 general contacts, and 13 accompanying persons; all required medical observation.
So far, nine batches of pooled Covid-19 samples have indicated preliminary positive results. One of the nine has been re-tested and found that it was a false positive. The remaining eight are currently undergoing further re-examination.
According to the Macao Government Tourism Office, 1,229 people are under medical observation in 20 hotels cross the city today; 749 are in general medical observation hotels, and 480 in specialised medical observation hotel. The total includes 611 Macao residents, 144 foreign employees and 474 tourists.
