The Macau government will cease the operation of its Health Code system on Monday next week.
The Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre made the announcement in a statement last night.
The new measure that will take effect on Monday means that smartphone users will no longer be able to generate the Macau Health Code.
Moreover, the ceased operation of the Macau Health Code system also means that smartphone users will no longer be able to present their COVID-19 vaccination records through the system.
However, according to the statement, from Monday the Macau Health Code mobile app will not be removed from app stores for the time being, i.e., iPhone’s App Store and Android’s Google Play.
Starting from Monday, the statement said, when a smartphone user enters the Macau Health Code app, the home page will inform the user that “the system is no longer working”.
Nevertheless, last night’s statement said, the app’s home page will still display the hyperlink to the Health Bureau’s (SSM) booking system on the city’s fee-based COVID-19 nucleic acid testing services, as well as the hyperlink to the bureau’s platform used for reporting COVID-19 rapid antigen test (RAT, aka self-test) results or checking one’s latest NAT results.
The statement also said that after the Macau Health Code system ceases operation, all types of information will be completely removed from the system, such as personal information, health code reporting-records, and visit-records that had been generated by venue codes’ scans.
The statement reminded the public that from Monday smartphone users can display their COVID-19 vaccination records on the Macao One Account system.
Last night’s statement said that the Macau government has decided to cease the operation of the Macau Health Code system after considering that it had already lifted its requirement on Tuesday last week for those entering the mainland from Macau after arriving here from Hong Kong to present a Macau Health Code.
Macau suffered its first peak of widespread COVID-19 infections around the Christmas holiday following the local government’s decision to abandon its long-running dynamic zero-COVID approach on December 8. A one-month period transitioning the city from the zero-COVID approach ended on January 8, when the local government started to tackle COVID-19 as an endemic disease.
Since January 8, when the city’s anti-COVID-19 transition period ended, people in Macau have no longer been required to report their state of health by generating their Macau Health Code when entering any public venues in the city.
The Macau Health Code ceased its red and yellow codes on January 8, meaning that smartphone users now always generate a green health code even though they report COVID-19 symptoms or contacts with COVID-19 carriers on the Macau Health Code.
Macau logs 1 new COVID-19 patient on Wednesday
Meanwhile, a new patient diagnosed with the novel coronavirus disease was admitted to the Health Bureau’s isolation and treatment facility on Wednesday, the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced in a separate statement yesterday.
Before the new COVID-19 patient was admitted on Wednesday, no new patients had been recorded for 25 consecutive days, from February 25 to Tuesday.
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 3,515, of which 3,392 had meanwhile been cured.
Meanwhile, Macau has not recorded any COVID-19 fatalities for 48 days in a row, from February 3 to March 22, according to yesterday’s statement, which announced that no fatalities were recorded on Wednesday.
Consequently, Macau’s official COVID-19 death toll has remained unchanged at 121.
The 48 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 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.
This picture released by the Health Bureau (SSM) last night shows the Chinese version of the Macau Health Code app’s home page, displaying “the system is no longer working” when the system ceases operation which will take effect on Monday.
