Health Bureau (SSM) officials are one step closer to establishing a link between two Covid-19 clusters which prompted the city-wide mass-testing which is due to end at noon today.
SSM Director Alvis Lo Iek Long said that the bureau has provisionally concluded that the 36 cases involved “are connected in a way”.
The first cluster consisted of 23 people, including 13 non-resident workers (NRW) living in one flat, their neighbours, three colleagues in a restaurant in Nam Van of one of the 13 non-resident workers, and two patrons of the restaurant, Padre Modern Cuisine located in Avenida da Praia Grande near Government Headquarters.
The 13 NRWs living together are all from Myanmar, including seven domestic helpers and a restaurant waiter.
The second cluster consisted of 13 people, including a prison staff member and his wife and daughter, a number of his relatives, a colleague, and his neighbours.
According to Leong Iek Hou, who heads the SSM’s Communicable Disease Prevention and Control Division, a person connected to the second cluster, a case which has recently been reported in Zhuhai, works in a Cantonese roasted meat shop in Rua da Emenda in San Kio. One of the non-resident workers of the first cluster regularly walked past the siu mei shop, Leong said.
The SSM believes that the Burmese NRW might have been infected through this channel and could have carried the virus into the flat, Leong said.
Leong said that a relative of the prison staff member is the owner of a fruit stall next to the siu mei shop.
Leong also revealed that the wife of the prison staff member is a teacher in the primary section of Hou Kong School. Leong said that around 300 students might be affected by the case, adding that her bureau will assess how many of them would need to undergo quarantine.
The daughter of the prison staff member is a kindergarten student at Sacred Heart Canossian College. Leong said that all her classmates have been transferred to quarantine for observation.
In related news, by 10 pm last night 585,666 people had had their swabs collected for Covid-19 tests; 360,211 came up with a negative result. However, 11 batches of pooled samples had preliminarily tested positive, including the two cases confirmed yesterday by the mass NAT drive.
A batch of pooled samples has 10 swabs taken from testees, also known as “10 mix into 1”. This sampling technique enables laboratories to come up with results in a much shorter time. However, if a batch of pooled samples tests positive, the 10 respective testees will need to have their swabs taken again in order for health officials to identify which of them really tested positive for Covid-19, The Macau Post Daily reported.
