The Social Welfare Bureau (IAS) said in a statement on Friday that starting today service users, staff members and visitors to the city’s care homes and daycare centres for senior citizens, rehabilitation centres for different groups of users, including drug users, respite care for the disabled, childcare centres and day activity and vocational rehabilitation centres will no longer be required to show a negative rapid antigen test (RAT) result when entering the facilities, apart from undergoing a temperature check.
In light of the overall development of the COVID-19 situation in Macau, the statement said, there has been no recent cluster infections in residential and day social facilities, and the situation has been stable.
The statement underlined, however, that regardless of whether any prospective visitors have ever been infected with COVID-19, those who show systemic symptoms such as fever, fatigue and myalgia (aka muscle pain), or respiratory symptoms such as sore throat, nasal congestion, runny nose and cough should undergo a rapid antigen test before entering the respective facilities.
Since the RAT results may be negative on the first or second day of symptoms of COVID-19 infection, the statement said, those who test negative for the first time should undergo an RAT on each of the following two days and upload the results to their reporting platform.
The statement stressed that anyone with a positive RAT result should not enter any care homes and centres.
This undated file photo taken from the website of Caritas Macau yesterday shows the façade of São Francisco Xavier Home for senior citizens.
