The Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced in a statement yesterday that the government’s ninth round of its rapid antigen test (RAT) kit purchase scheme will start on Friday.
As in previous rounds, the ninth round of the programme will run for 14 days, between Friday and March 30, 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 ninth 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 reminded the public that buyers 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 39 days
Meanwhile, Macau has not recorded any COVID-19 fatalities for 39 days in a row, from February 3 to March 13, according to a separate statement by the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre yesterday, which announced that no fatalities were recorded on Monday.
Consequently, Macau’s official COVID-19 death toll has remained unchanged at 121.
The 39 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.
No new patients for 17 days
Moreover, no new COVID-19 patients had been recorded for 17 consecutive days, from February 25 to Monday, after one new patient diagnosed with the novel coronavirus disease was admitted to the Health Bureau’s (SSM) isolation and treatment facility on February 24.
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 3,392 had meanwhile been cured.
798 deaths in January: official data
Meanwhile, latest official statistics show that Macau recorded 798 deaths in January, a year-on-year increase of 287.4 percent from January last year when 206 fatalities were recorded.
The number of 798 fatalities recorded in January was announced by the Monthly Bulletin of Statistics February 2023, which was published by the Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) last week.
This came after the Statistics and Census Bureau announced last month in its Monthly Bulletin of Statistics January 2023 that Macau recorded 773 deaths in December last year.
785 deaths in December
However, the Monthly Bulletin of Statistics February 2023, which was published last week, revised the number of deaths recorded in December 2022 up, to 785.
According to the Monthly Bulletin of Statistics February 2023, Macau recorded 2,230 and 2,320 fatalities in 2020 and 2021 respectively. This means that Macau had an average of fewer than 200 monthly deaths in 2020 and 2021.
Because of the much-higher-than-normal monthly number of deaths recorded in December last year, Macau recorded 3,004 fatalities in 2022, according to the Monthly Bulletin of Statistics February 2023.
Before last year, according to historical official statistics, Macau had recorded around 2,000 to 2,300 deaths every year over the past few years.
Macau suffered its first peak of widespread COVID-19 infections around the Christmas holiday resulting from the local government’s decision to abandon its dynamic zero-COVID approach on December 8, but the city’s COVID-19 situation has markedly improved since the second half of January.
After Macau had the highest daily official number of new COVID-19 fatalities of nine on January 5, the new daily number of fatalities had gradually been declining, before the latest fatality was reported on February 2.
This undated handout photo taken from the Hong Kong government’s COVID-19 special website yesterday shows a COVID-19 rapid antigen test (RAT) kit.
