The Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced last night that a male mainlander who entered Macau in the wee hours of yesterday has been taken to the Health Bureau’s (SSM) Public Health Clinical Centre in Coloane for quarantine, after Guangdong’s health authorities told their Macau counterparts that the 28-year-old man had taken a bus ride in the neighbouring province with a person who had had close contact with a confirmed asymptomatic carrier of the novel coronavirus in the province’s south-western city of Maoming.
Maoming’s health authorities reported an asymptomatic carrier of the novel coronavirus yesterday, a 47-year-old waitress working at a restaurant in Guangzhou who had served food to a 75-year-old woman, who was confirmed as a COVID-19 patient on Friday last week. The 47-year-old woman is a Maoming resident.
The 75-year-old woman living in Guangzhou’s Liwan district, a new local COVID-19 case reported by the provincial capital’s health authorities on Friday last week, had been diagnosed with carrying the mutant strain spreading in India that is more contagious than the original novel coronavirus. Her husband has meanwhile been confirmed as an asymptomatic carrier of the novel coronavirus.
According to yesterday’s announcement by Maoming’s health authorities, the Guangzhou government told its Maoming counterpart on Friday last week that the 47-year-old served food to the 75-year-old in the restaurant in Liwan district on Wednesday last week without wearing a facemask, because of which the 47-year-old was classified as having had close contact with a confirmed COVID-19 patient.
Maoming’s health authorities then transferred the 47-year-old, who had returned to her home from Guangzhou, to a quarantine facility, where she underwent a nucleic acid test (NAT) on Saturday, the result of which was negative. The woman underwent a follow-up nucleic acid test on Monday, which came up with a result yesterday showing that she tested positive for COVID-19. She has been classified as an asymptomatic carrier of the novel coronavirus as she has not come down with any COVID-19 symptoms.
According to last night’s statement by the centre, the Guangdong Health Commission told the Macau Health Bureau yesterday afternoon that the 28-year-old male mainlander took a bus ride from Maoming to Guangzhou on Friday last week with a person who had had close contact with the 47-year-old woman, because of which the 28-year-old man has been classified as having had close contact with his fellow bus passenger
According to the statement, the Health Bureau found that the 28-year-old entered Macau via the mainland-Macau joint border checkpoint in Hengqin in the early hours of yesterday. Since checking into The Londoner casino-hotel resort in Cotai, the man had remained in his guestroom, except once when he had his breakfast at a restaurant in the integrated resort, before the bureau took him to the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre yesterday afternoon where he tested negative for COVID-19 in a nucleic acid test, the statement said.
The 28-year-old man has meanwhile been taken to the bureau’s Coloane Public Health Clinical Centre for quarantine and medical observation, according to the statement, which did not say how long he would need to undergo the medical observation.
The centre’s statement noted that the mainland health authorities have classified the 28-year-old as “a close contact of a close contact” of an asymptomatic carrier of the novel coronavirus as he had been on a bus ride with that person who had close contact with the Maoming woman.
The statement underlined that the 28-year-old man does not pose a high COVID-19 risk to Macau as he has tested negative for COVID-19 in a nucleic acid test, apart from the fact that the mainland health authorities have merely classified him as “a close contact of a close contact” of an asymptomatic COVID-19 patient.
This undated filed photo from the Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS) shows the Public Health Clinical Centre, which is located on Coloane Hill.
