The Macau government declared today a "state of immediate prevention" to avoid a local COVID-19 outbreak.
According to a statement by the Unitary Police Service (SPU), the state of immediate prevention was declared by Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng by executive order, based on a risk assessment by the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre.
The SPU statement said that Macau is "facing the risk of being affected by a community outbreak of the novel coronavirus." The statement stressed that the declaration of the state of immediate prevention aims to "avoid the transmission of the novel coronavirus in Macau and to safeguard residents' life and property."
Due to the declaration of the state of immediate prevention, Macau's civil protection mechanism was immediately activated.
The state of immediate prevention was declared after two local residents tested positive for COVID-19.
According to a separate statement by the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre, the local health authorities were notified by their counterparts in the adjacent city of Zhuhai in Guangdong province earlier today that the two Macau residents had tested positive for the novel coronavirus at a testing center in Zhuhai yesterday.
According to the statement, the two local residents are a couple living with their two children in Mei Lin Building on Rua de Coelho do Amaral. The male residents is a 51-year-old driver working for the Macau Health Bureau (SSM). His 43-year-old wife works for a fruit shop in Weng Fat Building on Rua da Emenda.
The public health centre in Seac Pai Van and public health station in Coloane, where the driver worked, have temporarily been closed for disinfection. The fruit shop where his wife worked has also been temporarily closed for disinfection by the Macau Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM).
The couple are the first local COVID-19 cases since April last year. They are in "medical observation" at an isolation facility, the statement said.
The Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced at a press conference this afternoon that the couple two children, a girl and a boy, have meanwhile also tested positive for COVID-19.
The four latest cases have raised Macau's COVID-19 tally to 63.
Meanwhile, the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre also announced in the statement that from 3:30 p.m. today anyone planning to leave Macau needs to present a negative COVID-19 test result issued within the past 24 hours. The statement urged the local population to leave Macau only if absolutely necessary.
Macau confirmed its first COVID-19 case on January 22, 2020. No COVID-19 fatality has been reported in Macau. Almost all cases have been classified by the Health Bureau as imported.
The Macau Government Information Bureau (GCS) announced in a brief statement tonight that all the four cases of the family cluster have meanwhile been confirmed to be of the Delta variant.
