Seven more COVID-19 patients were admitted to treatment facilities on Monday, one at the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre and six at the private Kiang Wu Hospital, the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced in a statement yesterday.
Recent official figures have indicated Macau’s daily number of new COVID-19 patients admitted to treatment facilities has been on the rise since last week.
Last month, there were only two days when Macau had new COVID-19 patients admitted to treatment facilities, namely two on April 25 and three on April 27.
Between Monday last week and Monday this week, new COVID-19 patients were admitted to treatment facilities every day.
From May 1 to 8, the new daily numbers of COVID-19 patients admitted to treatment facilities were one, one, one, two, three, five, seven, and seven respectively. Consequently, a total of 27 new COVID-19 patients were admitted to treatment facilities during the eight-day period.
In March, there was only one day when the city had a new COVID-19 patient admitted to a treatment facility, on March 22. Consequently, only one new COVID-19 patient was admitted in the whole of March.
Macau had new COVID-19 patients admitted to treatment facilities on 12 days in February, during which the highest daily number of new patients admitted to treatment facilities stood at five, on February 1.
The last time that Macau had seven new COVID-19 patients admitted to treatment facilities in a day was on January 20.
According to the latest official statistics, as of Monday Macau’s official cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stood at 3,547.
Meanwhile, Macau had not recorded any COVID-19 fatalities for 95 days in a row, from February 3 to May 8. Consequently, Macau’s official COVID-19 death toll has remained unchanged at 121.
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 Macau logged 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.
13th round of RAT kit purchase scheme to start on Friday
Meanwhile, the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced in a separate statement yesterday that the government’s 13th round of its rapid antigen test (RAT) kit purchase scheme will start on Friday.
As in previous rounds, the 13th round of the programme will run for 14 days, between Friday and May 25, 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 13th 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 Macau government rolled out the programme in early December last year, 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.
The local government has still not indicated as to when it will eventually cancel its COVID-19 RAT kit purchase scheme, as well as its facemask purchase scheme, which was rolled out in early 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect the city.
