The Macau government announced on Tuesday tightening of its Covid-19 testing requirements for front-line casino staff, halving the interval between nucleic acid tests to every two days, from every four days. The change was the second update in under a fortnight, and the third since the autumn.
Table game dealers, as well as security staff and cleaners working inside any casino, are now required to do a nucleic acid test every two days, proving their Covid-19 ‘negative’ status, said the city’s health authorities. Those workers also must do a rapid antigen test – typically a home-based test – every two days.
Workers need to report the ‘negative’ test results to the authorities so that they show on the person’s individual, Macau-issued electronic health code.
A prior guideline announced by the health authorities on November 25 said that frontline casino staff were required to do a nucleic acid test and a rapid antigen test every four days. Before that, for a period of about a month, casino staff were required just to do a nucleic acid test every seven days.
The latest tightening of Covid-19 test rules announced for the city’s front-line casino staff, coincides with the local government adopting stricter nucleic acid test and rapid antigen test requirements for travellers entering Macau from mainland China.
Mainland China remains the only place to have a largely quarantine-free travel arrangement with Macau. But people that have visited places on the mainland deemed ‘high-risk’ for Covid-19 transmission still have to do a five-day hotel quarantine on arrival, plus three days of isolation, either at home or at another hotel venue.
