With effect from Saturday (November 5), people intending to travel between Macau and the neighbouring city of Zhuhai, in the mainland province of Guangdong, have seen a relaxation of the Covid-19 ‘negative’ test result validity to 48 hours, from 24 hours, the latter a condition that had been imposed since October 30.
The fresh easing coincided with completion on Saturday of a second round of mass testing of just over 660,000 samples from the Macau population. It yielded no fresh Covid-19 cases relative to the two ‘imported’ among people regularly travelling to Zhuhai – and eight associated cases – that had been identified in an alert that started on October 26.
The testing rule remains unchanged for Macau inbound travellers from elsewhere in mainland China: they have to present Covid-19 ‘negative’ test result validity within seven days after the date of sampling.
The Macau government said in a press release on Sunday evening, that after “comprehensive analysis”, Macau was returning to “normalisation of epidemic prevention”, and there would be no press conference on Monday for the city’s Covid-19 task group, the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre.
“With the joint efforts of various departments of the Macau Special Administrative Region government, all sectors of society and the whole community, and by integrating the joint prevention and control mechanism between Zhuhai and Macau, the current round of the epidemic has been effectively controlled,” the announcement said.
An ongoing Covid-19 outbreak in Guangdong province had delayed a restart of the package tour trade to Macau via that mainland market, said on Friday a tour trade representative. But the person added such trade was still likely to restart this month.
