After testing those living or working near the Barrier Gate Plaza, the Macau government yesterday extended its COVID-19 testing drive to more groups of people, in the wake of the COVID-19 positive case of the woman living in Zhongshan city’s Tanzhou town, who was yesterday described by the local government as a parallel trader commuting between Macau and Zhuhai.
Meanwhile, the local government announced last night that 7,103 people were tested under its mandatory testing programme for those living or working in the Barrier Gate Plaza neighbourhood, all of whom have shown a negative result. The testing drive, which ended at 12 p.m. yesterday, was launched at 5 p.m. on Monday after the local government confirmed that the Tanzhou (坦洲) woman had visited a number of shops in the neighbourhood since last week.
The “key area” under the mandatory testing drive that ended at noon yesterday covered 13 residential buildings in the Barrier Gate Plaza neighbourhood.
The Zhongshan health authorities confirmed the 45-year-old woman’s asymptomatic COVID-19 case on Monday morning.
While Tanzhou town is in Zhongshan city, it neighbours Zhuhai and only lies some 10 kilometres northwest of Macau. Tanzhou is much closer to central Zhuhai than central Zhongshan city.
A statement by Macau’s Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre yesterday evening announced that with the aim of “further” assessing the risk of the possible occurrence of COVID-19 community transmissions in Macau, two other groups of people must undergo three nucleic acid tests (NATs) in three days.
The mandatory COVID-19 testing drive for the two groups, which started at 6 p.m. yesterday, will end at 6 p.m. on Friday.
According to the statement, people in the first group are those who crossed the Barrier Gate checkpoint more than four times on any one day in the period between Friday and Sunday. They must undergo a test every 24 hours over a three-day period from 6 p.m. yesterday to 6 p.m. on Friday, meaning that they are required to undergo a total of three nucleic acid tests during the period.
People in the second group, according to the statement, are those who had visited the same places as the 45-year-old Tanzhou woman at around the same time. They must also undergo three tests during the period from 6 p.m. yesterday to 6 p.m. on Friday.
The statement said that in addition to the two groups subject to mandatory testing, the Macau government is also urging those who crossed the Barrier Gate checkpoint between Friday and Sunday to undergo a one-off test between yesterday and tomorrow.
According to the statement, the affected people can choose to book a free test on https://app.ssm.gov.mo/mandatoryrnatestbook or a paid test on https://eservice.ssm.gov.mo/rnatestbook/V21. However, the negative result of the free test will not be displayed on the Macau Health Code, meaning that it cannot be used for crossing the checkpoints.
The statement said that those in the two groups failing to undergo each of the three required tests before the required schedule will have their Macau Health Code turn yellow six hours afterwards. As an example, the statement pointed out that the affected people must undergo their first test before 6 p.m. today, otherwise their Macau Health Code will turn yellow after 11:59 p.m. today.
The statement said that those whose health code has become yellow will only have it return to green after having the required test and it comes up with a negative result.
Those with a yellow code are barred from entering certain premises and facilities, such as government offices, in Macau. They are also barred from taking public transport and crossing Macau’s border checkpoints.
Tanzhou woman to be barred from entering Macau
Meanwhile, Secretary for Security Wong Sio Chak confirmed yesterday that the 45-year-old Tanzhou woman had admitted that she was involved in Macau-Zhuhai cross-border parallel-trading activities, adding that the Macau Public Security Police (PSP) – which runs the city’s immigration service – have decided to bar the woman from entering Macau for one year. Wong made the remarks while speaking to reporters after attending a committee meeting in the Legislative Assembly (AL) yesterday.
According to Wong, the Tanzhou woman is a mainlander holding a travel permit for visiting relatives in Macau. The local police have concluded that the woman did not visit relatives in Macau at all but instead engaged in cross-border parallel-trading activities by making use of her travel permit, because of which, Wong said, it is legally justified for the local police to bar her from entering Macau for a period of time.
Wong said that this was a rather “tough” punishment for the woman, as normally the local police are not very likely to bar parallel traders from entering Macau.
Wong said that the local police will also bar similar people – those with travel permits for other purposes but who instead engage in parallel trading activities – from entering Macau.
Parallel traders (known in Cantonese jargon as “soi hak”, which literally translated means “water travellers”) buy products in jurisdictions where they are sold at lower prices and sell them in higher-price jurisdictions. The flow of products thereby created is called parallel trade.
People queue to be tested for COVID-19 at a sampling site in Gongbei subdistrict in Zhuhai yesterday. The Zhuhai government launched mass testing for those living in certain neighbourhoods early this week. Photo: Simon Wang
