Thousands of people in Macau are obliged to carry out a test for covid-19 after the neighboring city of Zhuhai detected a positive case, a woman who lives in the territory, the authorities announced today.
According to the Macau Health Services (SSM), the authorities in Zhuhai detected a positive case, confirmed by a new test carried out in Macau today, of a 66-year-old woman residing in the Fai Chi Kei area, in the north of the peninsula.
Leong Iek Hou, from the SSM’s New Type of Coronavirus Contingency Coordination Center, said at a press conference that the resident was not vaccinated against covid-19 and so far does not show any symptoms.
The authorities blocked all exits from the street where the sixty-year-old lives, in a house with two other people, with the area being classified as code red.
The Macau Social Welfare Institute confirmed in a statement that a nursing home and a rehabilitation center for people with intellectual disabilities, both located in the surrounding area, will be closed to the public until at least midnight on Friday.
All residents or people who have spent at least 30 minutes in the surrounding area will need to take daily nucleic acid tests for three consecutive days.
The Institute for Municipal Affairs revealed that it had increased the number of employees to clean and disinfect this afternoon “in residential dwellings, surrounding streets and common parts of buildings” in the target area.
At the press conference, the SSM director said he believed it was “an imported case” from mainland China, detected “early” and, as such, with a “lower risk of transmission”.
Alvis Lo Iek Long advised the population to limit themselves to essential activities and to comply with the mandatory use of a mask.
Macau, which follows the zero-case policy imposed by Beijing, faced in June and July the worst outbreak of covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, with the authorities decreeing a partial confinement.
So far, the Chinese special administrative region has recorded six deaths and 2,530 infected (794 confirmed cases and 1,736 asymptomatic) linked to the new coronavirus.
