Macau recorded 336 COVID-19 infections on Sunday, 66 more than the 270 infections recorded on Saturday, the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre announced in a statement yesterday.
According to the statement, one of the 336 COVID-19 carriers was admitted to the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre for treatment.
Consequently, a total of 100 new COVID-19 patients were admitted to treatment facilities between May 1 and May 21.
Last month, there were only two days when Macau had new COVID-19 patients admitted to treatment facilities – two on April 25 and three on April 27.
According to the Health Bureau’s (SSM) COVID-19 website, which was updated yesterday, Macau’s official cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases stood at 3,620, of which 3,479 had meanwhile been cured.
The Macau government has underlined that the city is currently being affected by a new peak of COVID-19 infections.
According to previous announcements by the centre, Macau recorded COVID-19 702 infections on Wednesday, 658 infections on Thursday, 551 infections on Friday, and 270 infections on Saturday last week.
The local government has also underlined that the current peak of COVID-19 infections does not cause a significant impact on the city’s medical system and normal operation because of Omicron’s weaker pathogenicity.
The government decided to announce again the daily number of new COVID-19 infections in the city from last week, in the wake of the fact that COVID-19 infections have been on the rise since early this month.
The local government had only announced the daily number of new COVID-19 patients admitted to treatment facilities since the middle of December last year, when Macau suffered its first peak of widespread COVID-19 infections 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.
The official number of daily infections, which became available again last week, include those reporting their COVID-19 self-test positive results on the Health Bureau’s online platform, those testing positive for COVID-19 in a nucleic acid test (NAT), as well as those seeking treatment at medical institutions whose COVID-19 self-test positive results are then reported by the doctors.
The Macau government has noted that various places in the world have different mechanisms for monitoring their new COVID-19 infections, because of which it is not suitable to “directly” compare Macau’s official number of daily infections with those recorded in various other places worldwide.
Macau has not recorded any COVID-19 fatalities for 108 days in a row, from February 3 to May 21. Consequently, Macau’s official COVID-19 death toll has remained unchanged at 121.
