Indirectly-elected lawmaker Lam Lon Wai urged the government yesterday to adjust or cancel some of its “ineffective” pandemic prevention and control measures to reduce the impact on residents’ daily lives.
Lam made the remarks at the start of a plenary session yesterday afternoon, the first plenary session after the Legislative Assembly’s summer recess that began on August 31. The session was attended by Secretary for Administration and Justice André Cheong Weng Chon and other government officials.
Lam insisted that the government’s COVID-19 prevention and control measures should not be based on the “the-tighter-the-better” assumption, but instead should be based on local society’s actual needs while adhering to the country’s “dynamic zero-COVID” policy.
Lam, a trade unionist, said the implementation and handling of health codes and venue codes had become a formality and their effectiveness was “questionable”, and in many cases was causing inconvenience to the public as there have been no new local COVID-19 cases for quite a while.
Currently, all venues and facilities in the city licensed by both the Municipal Affairs Bureau (IAM) and Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) are required to have their contact-tracing-function venue codes available for patrons to scan in order to record that they have visited the premises.
In addition, Lam noted that there are still restrictions on the number of people allowed at public venues which, he said, was affecting the relaunch of society’s normal activities. He urged the government to make “reasonable” adjustments.
Lam also pointed out that after the latest outbreak, the government had set up a raft of nucleic acid test (NAT) stations in parks and other open-air spaces, which was occupying areas normally used for public activities. He suggested that the government review the effectiveness of outdoor NAT stations and instead find suitable indoor venues for them.
Lam said that currently some official events still require participants to provide a negative NAT result, which was causing a lot of inconvenience. He suggested that a rapid antigen test (RAT) could be used instead.
Meanwhile, directly-elected lawmaker-cum-teacher Ma Io Fong urged the government to consider extending its “Educational Student Tours” programme to the Guangdong-Macau In-depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin, including assisting local primary and junior high schools in going on field trips to Hengqin or parent-child kindergarten trips, as there has been a gap of almost three years for the tours due to the pandemic.
Directly-elected lawmaker-cum-civic leader Alan Ho Ion Sang, on the other hand, said he hoped that the government would speed up its discussions with the mainland authorities on making immigration clearance more convenient for border crossers, so that in the case of a new COVID-19 outbreak people could still travel between Macau and the mainland.
Indirectly-elected lawmaker-cum-trade unionists Lam Lon Wai speaks during the Legislative Assembly’s (AL) plenary session yesterday afternoon. – Photo Courtesy of TDM
