Macao is facing new regulations today which will address Covid-19 patients’ discharge from the city’s isolation hospital and post-recovery health monitoring.
The Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre said that the new measures aim to avoid wasting medical resources by reducing the time patients spend in hospital, while its newly amended criteria are still slightly stricter than the mainland’s.
The centre noted that the National Health Commission has amended its criteria for Covid-19 patients to be discharged from hospitals and released from isolation in the mainland, in the light of the latest changes in the characteristics of the novel coronavirus disease.
Covid-19 patients in Macao, regardless of having symptoms or being asymptomatic carriers, are transferred to either the Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre or the Health Bureau’s (SSM) Public Health Clinical Centre in Coloane for isolation.
Under the new rules, patients who have recovered from novel coronavirus, and re-positive Covid-19 carriers, will start their seven-day post-recovery health monitoring after they have tested negative for Covid-19 in three consecutive nucleic acid tests which should be carried out at least 24 hours apart.
Secondly, newly infected cases can only start their post-recovery health monitoring after they have tested negative for Covid-19 in three consecutive tests which are to be carried out at least 24 hours apart, and at least 10 days since they tested positive for the virus for the first time.
The centre said that patients who still do not meet the general criteria for starting post-recovery health monitoring three weeks after they tested positive for Covid-19 for the first time will be assessed by a panel of experts who decide whether they can start their post-recovery health monitoring.
Post-recovery health monitoring, which was officially known as “recovery period isolation” before the implementation of the new criteria, previously lasted 21 days; the SSM has now shortened it to seven days.
Previously, those who had recovered from Covid-19 underwent their recovery period isolation at the Public Health Clinical Centre in Coloane after being discharged from isolation hospital, but in future will do so at one of Macao’s quarantine hotels.
Patients with clinical needs can choose to stay at the Public Health Clinical Centre for their post-recovery health monitoring.
Once patients have completed their post-recovery health monitoring, they will be required to practise “self-health management” at home for seven days.
The centre underlined that the government decided to amend its criteria for Covid-19 patients to be discharged from hospital treatment and released from isolation based on scientific grounds.
The centre added that amending the criteria for patients to be discharged from isolation hospital treatment in the light of their respective clinical conditions and test results can further reduce their hospital treatment and isolation period with the aim of avoiding wasting medical resources, The Macau Post Daily reported.
