Macau govt ups on-site checks of Covid steps in casinos
Macau’s gaming regulator says it has stepped up its patrols on the city’s casino floors to check for operators’ compliance with Covid-19 prevention measures.
In a Wednesday press release, the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau said it had deployed staff as part of “special anti-pandemic inspection teams” to conduct spot checks in casinos every day.
The bureau, also known by its Portuguese-language acronym as DICJ, said the checks involved not only checking gaming patrons’ health code declarations at the casino floors and slot parlours but also covering venue entrances and rest areas for staff.
The regulator also mentioned it had asked that the gaming companies “strictly follow” the relevant Covid-19 prevention guidelines, and to introduce a number of measures to protect the health of their staff and patrons.
DICJ noted casino operators and lottery and sports betting concessionaires were “committed to actively cooperating” with the government’s pandemic prevention guidelines, namely by stepping up the cleaning and disinfection of their properties.
The Macau gaming regulator said it was “encouraging” workers at casino and lottery and sports betting venues to get vaccinated, as part of what it termed their civic duty, and to prevent an outbreak that would threaten the gaming industry’s “safe and healthy image”.
Casino Oceanus, a self-promoted venue of SJM Holdings Ltd, had suspended its operation “for disinfection work,” the Macau gaming operator said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
Health official, Leong Iek Hou, said at Tuesday’s briefing from the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre, that a now-patient identified as case 72, had prior to confirmation of diagnosis on Monday, been gambling at Casino Oceanus.
Last week, Macau’s Chief Executive, Ho Iat Seng, said Macau had one of the lowest Covid-19 vaccination rates in the whole of China, about “50 percent”, and urged local people to get jabs, as a route to easing of travel restrictions with the mainland.
Reaching “80 percent” would make it “easier” for the local authorities to negotiate the resumption of inbound package tours from the mainland, and e-visa applications with the mainland authorities, he said.
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