With effect from 6am today (Tuesday, August 10), people intending to travel between Macau and the neighbouring Guangdong province, in mainland China, must hold a nucleic acid test certificate issued within 48 hours proving they are ‘negative’ for Covid-19 infection.
Authorities in the city of Zhuhai, Guangdong province, had previously announced that starting from August 4 people travelling between Zhuhai and Macau would need to present a certificate issued within 12 hours of departure, showing a ‘negative’ result for Covid-19. That was after a family of four in Macau being infected with the Delta variant of Covid-19, which led to tightening of cross-border travel rules.
The easing of the test requirement was announced on Monday evening by the Macau health authorities. The measure covers direct inbound and outbound land trips between Macau and Guangdong.
After identification of the new cases in Macau, the local authorities conducted a three-day mass testing of all people in Macau. The operation was concluded on August 7 and no new cases of Covid-19 infection were detected.
Mainland China is the only place to have a mostly quarantine-free travel bubble with Macau. The authorities in Guangdong, the largest-single source of tourists to Macau, have recently advised its citizens against trips outside the province, amid an uptick in Covid-19 cases on the mainland.
Since July 31, people intending to enter Macau on a direct flight from mainland China must hold a nucleic acid test certificate issued within 48 hours, proving they are ‘negative’ for Covid-19 infection. The measure covers flights arriving in Macau from any mainland Chinese city.
Impacted by disruption to travel to Macau, the city’s average daily casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) for the first eight days of August declined by 48 percent compared to the previous week, said on Monday brokerage Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd, citing its own channel checks. It was “the lowest daily GGR since late September,” said the Sanford Bernstein team.
The Covid-19 cluster detected in Macau already has dimmed hopes of recovery for Macau’s gaming and hospitality trade over the summer, said several senior figures in the sector, in comments to GGRAsia.
