Macau has since today demanded a negative test of covid-19 for residents traveling from Brazil to Hong Kong international airport and who want to enter the territory through the special maritime corridor.
“All persons departing from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brazil, who wish to transfer via special boat from Hong Kong airport to Macau, must first present a certificate of negative result of the new type nucleic acid test of coronavirus, issued by a qualified medical institution in the country of origin ”, the authorities announced.
The epidemic risk and health protection of workers and passengers using special maritime transport, created between the two Chinese special administrative regions until July 16, was the explanation given by the authorities during the press conference accompanying the covid-19.
Special transportation has been in effect since June 17. Since then, more than 600 people have returned to Macau and almost 250 have managed to leave the territory. More than 1,000 people are currently serving a mandatory 14-day quarantine in hotels.
At the same press conference, the authorities announced that as of Saturday, the daily quota for those who are exempted from serving 14 days of isolation when crossing the border to neighboring Chinese city has increased from 1,000 to 3,000.
The announcements were made on the day that health services reported a new case of contagion of covid-19, the first in the territory since April 9.
He is a resident of Macau, of Filipino nationality. The 57-year-old man, who traveled from the Philippine capital to Hong Kong’s international airport, arrived in Macau via a special maritime corridor designed to allow people trapped by the pandemic to return home.
Macau was one of the first territories to identify cases of infection with the covid-19, before the end of January. The territory then registered a first wave of ten cases. Another 35 cases started in March, all imported, a situation associated with the return of residents, many students in higher education in foreign countries.
Health officials today again underlined that no case of local contagion has been identified since the start of the pandemic and that no doctor or nurse has been infected.
The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed nearly 484,000 deaths and infected more than 9.5 million people in 196 countries and territories, according to a report by the France-Presse news agency (AFP).
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December in Wuhan, a city in central China.
After Europe succeeded China as the center of the pandemic in February, the American continent is now the one with the most confirmed cases and the most deaths.
