The Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced in a statement yesterday that the government’s eighth round of its rapid antigen test (RAT) kit purchase scheme will start tomorrow.
The same as in previous rounds, the eighth round of the programme will run for 14 days, between tomorrow and March 16, during which each local resident, non-resident worker and non-local student enrolled in Macau’s higher education institutions will be entitled to buy a total of 10 RAT kits at the fixed price of 40 patacas at designated outlets, i.e., four patacas per kit.
According to the statement, COVID-19 RAT kits provided by the programme’s eighth round will be sold at 55 designated pharmacies, five venues run by the Macau Women’s General Association (known as Fu Luen in Cantonese), and five venues run by the Macau Federation of Trade Unions (Gung Luen).
The statement also reminded that people can return defective RAT kits that have been purchased through the programme to public health centres, and change them for new ones.
The Macau government rolled out the programme in early December, enabling local residents, non-resident workers, and non-local students enrolled in Macau’s higher education institutions to buy RAT kits used for COVID-19 self-tests from designated outlets at a discounted price.
No COVID-19 deaths for 26 days
Meanwhile, Macau has not recorded any COVID-19 fatalities for 26 days in a row, from February 3 to 28, according to a separate statement by the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre yesterday, which announced that no fatalities were recorded on Tuesday.
Consequently, Macau’s official COVID-19 death toll has remained unchanged at 121.
The 26 consecutive days without any COVID-19 fatalities is the longest period without any deaths caused by the novel coronavirus disease, since Macau’s seventh COVID-19 fatality was reported on December 13, a few days after the Macau government abandoned its long-running dynamic zero-COVID approach.
Before one fatality was reported on February 2, Macau had not recorded any COVID-19 fatalities for seven consecutive days, from January 26 to February 1.
Moreover, no new COVID-19 patients had been recorded for four consecutive days, from Saturday to Tuesday, after one new patient diagnosed with the novel coronavirus disease was admitted to the Health Bureau’s (SSM) isolation and treatment facility on Friday last week.
According to the Health Bureau’s COVID-19 website, which was updated yesterday, Macau’s official cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stood at 3,514, of which 3,391 had meanwhile been cured.
