The Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced in a statement last night that a one-year-old baby girl who returned to Macau from Malaysia about two weeks ago tested positive for COVID-19 in a nucleic acid test (NAT) yesterday.
According to the statement, the Health Bureau (SSM) has decided not to classify the baby as a confirmed COVID-19 case for Macau, as she had previously been confirmed as a COVID-19 patient in Malaysia before returning to Macau.
According to the statement, the baby is a Macau ID card holder who also lives in Malaysia. She was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus disease in Malaysia on September 23.
The baby tested negative for COVID-19 in a nucleic acid test in Malaysia on November 23. She returned to Macau with her mother the next day via Singapore.
Upon arrival in Macau, the statement said, the baby tested negative for the novel coronavirus in a nucleic acid test, after which she and her mother were taken to the Health Bureau’s Public Health Clinical Centre in Coloane for their medical observation quarantine.
According to the statement, the baby had undergone seven nucleic acid tests since she started her quarantine, with all of them negative. However, the statement said, she “weakly” tested positive for the novel coronavirus in a test yesterday.
The statement underlined that the Health Bureau has decided not to classify the baby as a confirmed COVID-19 patient for Macau considering that she has previously been confirmed as a patient elsewhere, apart from the fact that she has not come down with any COVID-19 symptoms since returning to Macau.
‘Re-positive’ vs relapse
Consequently, the statement said, the Health Bureau has classified the baby as a “re-positive” case – a person who has tested positive for the novel coronavirus again in a nucleic acid test after having previously been infected with COVID-19 and recovered.
The Health Bureau has previously pointed out that the fact that some COVID-19 patients discharged from hospital or asymptomatic carriers of the novel coronavirus have later tested positive for the virus again in a nucleic acid test is “merely a phenomenon”, which means that they have not had a relapse, i.e., suffering from COVID-19 symptoms again.
