Macau casino dealers priority for Covid-19 vaccine: govt

Feb 01, 2021 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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Macau casino dealers are on the city’s “priority” list for vaccination against Covid-19, said Ao Ieong U, Macau’s Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, in comments to local media on Monday.

Under current rules, anyone wishing to enter a Macau casino as a customer must provide evidence of a recent ‘negative’ test result for Covid-19 infection.

Speaking on the sidelines of an event, Secretary Ao Ieong noted there was a number of groups within the community, whose members were to be given jabs as a priority. The groups were: medical staff; government officials working at Macau’s boundary checkpoints; casino dealers; teachers; professional drivers; and students that are scheduled to study overseas.

The Macau government was concluding its count of how many individuals in aggregate were covered by those categories, said Ms Ao Ieong.

Macau health officials had last month told local media that the government intended to provide Covid-19 vaccination free-of-charge to Macau ID holders, non-resident workers, and non-resident students.

The Macau government has already purchased 400,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine developed by Sinopharm; 400,000 doses of the mRNA-based vaccine by BioNTech and Pfizer, distributed in China by Fosun Pharma; and 400,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by AstraZeneca, the Macau health authorities had mentioned in a December briefing.

In the regular Monday briefing for the media regarding Macau’s Covid-19 countermeasures, Alvis Lo Iek Long, clinical director at Macau public health facility Conde S. Januário Hospital, noted the first batches of Sinopharm vaccine and of BioNTech and Fosun Pharma vaccine were due to be delivered to Macau this month. The AstraZeneca vaccine would only be delivered to the city by “the third quarter” this year, Mr Lo said.

The Macau government would ensure that sufficient Covid-19 vaccine doses were made available to cover the city’s whole population, Mr Lo remarked during the Monday update.

(Updated Feb 2, 6.30pm)

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