Macau Orders and Conducts Coronavirus Testing for All

Macau’s Chief Executive ordered COVID testing for Macau’s entire population after the city confirmed four new coronavirus cases on 3 August 2021. The tests ran non-stop from 4 August to 7 August.

The CE’s Executive Order followed an evaluation by Macau’s Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Center. The order is based upon Provision 3 of Article 8 of the Civil Protection Law. There is no evidence at this time of a legal challenge. 

A rapid plan went into action. The government established 41 nucleic acid testing stations across the city: 27 on the Macau peninsula and 14 in either Taipa or Coloane. There were also an additional five non-government run testing stations at at Pac On Ferry Terminal, the Macau Forum building, Kiang Wu Hospital, the Workers Stadium, and the University Hospital of the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST). Testing was free and appointments were not required, though lines were often long.

Participants of the testing drive were required to register with either their Resident Identity Card (for Macau residents) or the travel document that was used for entry (for non-Macau residents). 

Verification was conducted via cell phones. All resident persons received a “code blue” that would transform into either “code green” or “code yellow” depending upon whether or not they were tested within the testing period.

Further, while the city’s casinos remained open, its cinemas, theatres, massage parlors, bars, nightclubs, and bowling alleys were ordered closed.

The Macau Government reported that as of 02:00 on August 8, a total of 614,465 people were tested at the government location centers, combined with another 101,786 people who underwent the test at private centers, for a total of 716,251 people. The government reports not a single positive result.

Macau has been very aggressive in combating the coronavirus. It has registered only 59 infections and no deaths. In January 2020, toward the outset of the pandemic, Macau authorities actually quickly to track down and deport around 150 visitors from Hubei province. Another Hubei-based family of four opted to go into quarantine for a fortnight instead, saying they already had relatives in isolation at a Macau hospital.

Macau’s response has been and will inevitably be compared with the response in Hong Kong, which has a similar population density (despite roughly 1/10th the overall population). Macau quickly introduced firm measures to limit the flow of people from mainland China. Immediately upon the detection of its first cross-border case, Macau closed its border with neighboring Zhuhai. 

The first confirmed case in Hong Kong was confirmed on 23 January 2020. On 5 February, after a five-day strike by front-line medical workers, the Hong Kong government closed all but three border control points – Hong Kong International Airport, Shenzhen Bay Control Point, and Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge Control Point remaining open. Macau's entry bans on Hubei residents, and those who had visited the province 14 days before their arrival in Macau, was similar to Hong Kong's ban on the surface, but the Macau authorities' demanding official medical certification of infection-free status brought down visitor numbers more sharply because such certificates are hard to obtain.

Although the casinos are long reopened after a two-week closure in 2020, COVID has taken its toll on local travel and, by extension, revenue.

Relatedly, the Hong Kong Government removed Macau from its list of places from which residents could return without the need for quarantine.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Macau Court of Final Appeal Rejects Appeal by Disqualified Democrats

The Macau Court of Final Appeal en banc upheld the Legislative Assembly Election Affairs Commission’s (CAEAL) disqualification of candidates brought by representatives of three democratic parties in Macau. The CAEAL is a local administrative body whose membership is appointed by the Macau Chief Executive. The democrats were noticed of their disqualification on July 9. The CFA's 70-page Chinese-language decision dropped on 31 July (no Portuguese available yet). The Court’s reasoning goes like this: Any right, even if it is "basic," cannot be absolutely unrestricted. The exercise of any basic right is regulated by law. Indeed, Macau Basic Law (MBL) Article 26 stipulates that the right of permanent residents' to vote and be elected is regulated "in accordance with the law. According to Article 6 (8) of the Macau SAR Legislative Council Election Law, amended in the aftermath of the Hong Kong oath-taking controversy in 2016, those who do not support the MBL or are
Read more

The Great Leveling

A great leveling is occurring between the political systems of Macau and Hong Kong – one that not only irons out differences between the two local governments, but moves them both closer to the system of mainland China. The longstanding, on-and-off pattern of centripetal pressure has expedited again in the past year. Indeed, the governance of China’s two Special Administrative Regions has always appeared much the same to central authorities in Beijing, despite the two cities’ vastly different historical and cultural contexts. Beijing refused an initial Portuguese offer to handover Macau in 1974, citing a desire to reclaim Macau and Hong Kong at the same time. Functional constituencies – the hallmark form of indirect suffrage during the Portuguese colonial era – were grafted into Hong Kong’s new Legislative Council in 1985. About the same time, state newspapers floated the idea of combining Macau and Hong Kong into a single SAR. When explaining a draft of the Macau Basic Law in 19
Read more

On the Electoral Affairs Committee of the Macau Legislative Assembly, with Translation of Key Text of Implementing Legislation

Macau’s Government adopted legislation to bring its electoral law regime into compliance with the National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s 7 November 2016 interpretation of Article 104 of the Hong Kong Basic Law (the ‘2016 Interpretation’). That adoption is now paying dividends, from an authoritarian point of view.  Macau had already been working on amendments to its electoral regime in anticipation of the 2017 quadrennial Legislative Assembly election. The original proposal generated controversy throughout the summer of 2016 for expanding the candidate screening powers of the local Legislative Assembly Election Affairs Commission (CAEAL) – a municipal body whose membership is appointed by the Chief Executive. Macau’s then-Secretary of Administration and Justice, Sonia Chan, sought deeper amendments following the 2016 Interpretation. The revised version was introduced along with an explanatory text on 7 December 2016. The document is notable for its drafters’ views of Macau’
Read more