Four local residents who returned to Macau from Australia, Myanmar, Singapore and the United States on Saturday have tested positive for COVID-19, Macau’s Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced yesterday.
The centre has classified the four cases as imported and asymptomatic, because of which they have not been added to Macau’s novel coronavirus tally, which therefore remains at 82.
One of the four had stayed in Singapore before returning to Macau, while the other three returned to Macau via Singapore. All of them caught the same flight from Singapore to Macau on Saturday.
According to a statement by the centre, the first patient is a 33-year-old woman who returned to Macau from Singapore on Saturday. She has received two COVID-19 mRNA shots.
The second patient is a 37-year-old man who returned to Macau from Myanmar via Singapore. He has received three Sinopharm inactivated jabs, according to the statement.
The third patient is a 25-year-old woman who returned to Macau from the US via Singapore, having received three mRNA jabs, while the fourth patient is a 23-year-old woman who returned to Macau from Australia via Singapore, having been inoculated with two mRNA shots, according to the statement.
All the four tested positive for the novel coronavirus upon arrival at the local airport on Saturday, because of which they have been transferred to the Health Bureau’s (SSM) Public Health Clinical Centre in Coloane for isolation, the statement said.
The four asymptomatic COVID-19 patients have told Health Bureau officials that they had never been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus disease.
‘Re-positive’ case from returnee from Dubai
Meanwhile, the same statement also announced that an imported COVID-19 “re-positive” case, a 39-year-old local woman who returned to Macau from Dubai via Singapore on Saturday.
A COVID-19 “re-positive” case means that a person has tested positive for the novel coronavirus again in a nucleic acid test (NAT) after having previously been infected with COVID-19 and recovered.
The woman caught the same flight from Singapore as the four asymptomatic patients.
According to the statement, the woman, who has received two Sinopharm jabs, also tested positive for the novel coronavirus upon arrival at the local airport on Saturday. The woman, who has not come down with any COVID-19 symptoms, has also been transferred to the Public Health Clinical Centre for isolation.
The statement said that the woman was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus disease outside Macau on January 12, because of which her case has been as a “re-positive” case.
Another returnee from HK has asymptomatic COVID-19
Meanwhile, one more returnee from Hong Kong tested positive for COVID-19 upon arrival here on Thursday, Macau’s Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced in a statement that day.
The case has also been classified as imported and asymptomatic. The patient is a 53-year-old local man who had received two Sinopharm inactivated jabs, before receiving a dose of COVID-19 mRNA vaccine as his booster jab last month. He was transferred to the Public Health Clinical Centre for isolation treatment.
Asymptomatic tally rises to 50
In addition to the total of 82 confirmed COVID-19 cases, the centre pointed out yesterday that Macau has now reported a total of 50 asymptomatic COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began.
Since December last year, the Macau government has separately classified and announced asymptomatic COVID-19 cases and confirmed COVID-19 cases.
COVID-19 “re-positive” cases are not classified as confirmed COVID-19 cases for Macau, neither are they classified as asymptomatic COVID-19 cases for Macau.
Mainlanders with certain travel permits frequently crossing border must be tested upon arrival every time
Meanwhile, the Macau government has announced that from today all mainlanders holding a travel permit for visiting relatives in Macau who enter Macau via the Barrier Gate checkpoint or the Qingmao checkpoint three times or more per day must undergo a paid COVID-19 nucleic acid test (NAT) upon arrival here every time, despite holding an NAT certificate confirming a valid negative COVID-19 result.
Currently, the negative COVID-19 NAT result for those entering Macau from Zhuhai is valid for 48 hours, while the negative result for those entering Zhuhai from Macau is valid for seven days.
Mainlanders holding travel permits for visiting relatives in Macau, which are issued by the authorities in the mainland, are allowed to commute between the two regions during their permitted stay in Macau.
Macau’s Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced the new measure, which took effect at 00:00 today, in a statement on Saturday.
The new measure aims to reduce the COVID-19 risk to Macau resulting from the frequent crossing of the Macau-Zhuhai border via the Barrier Gate checkpoint or the nearby Qingmao checkpoint, the statement said.
The Macau government has acknowledged that some of those holding travel permits for visiting relatives in Macau have engaged in Macau-Zhuhai cross-border parallel-trading (colloquially known as “soi hak” in Cantonese) activities by making use of their travel permits, and some non-resident workers have also engaged in such activities, in the wake of the detection two weeks ago of an asymptomatic COVID-19 case of a female mainlander living in Zhongshan city’s Tanzhou town who was later confirmed as having engaged in Macau-Zhuhai cross-border parallel-trading activities by making use of her travel permit for visiting relatives in Macau.
The Macau police have underlined that they will impose an entry ban for a period of time on those holding a travel permit for visiting relatives in Macau or other purposes after concluding that they have engaged in cross-border parallel-trading activities. The local police will also abolish the stay permits of non-resident workers employed in Macau after concluding that they have engaged in such activities.
Saturday’s statement by the centre said that all mainlanders holding a travel permit for visiting relatives in Macau who have made three or more entries into Macau within a single day (between 00:00 and 11:59 p.m. on the same day) via the Barrier Gate or Qingmao checkpoint must, upon each entry, immediately undergo a COVID-19 nucleic acid test at their own expense “regardless of the time of sampling on their proof of negative NAT result”.
Each COVID-19 nucleic acid test costs 70 patacas in Macau.
According to the statement, the affected travellers must wait for their negative NAT results after having their swabs collected, before being allowed to enter Macau.
The statement said that it may take up to 12 hours for the NAT results to be available after the travellers have their swabs collected. The negative result of such a compulsory test will not be displayed on the Macau Health Code, the statement said.
Saturday’s statement by the centre underlined that for the time being the new measure is only appliable to mainlanders holding a travel permit for visiting relatives, adding that those crossing the Macau-Zhuhai border via all checkpoints other than the Barrier Gate and Qingmao are not affected by the measure.
Travellers enter Macau from Zhuhai via the Barrier Gate checkpoint yesterday.
Photo courtesy of TDM
