25 Macau students ‘flee’ from Portugal

A total of 25 Macau residents who are currently studying in Portugal have already boarded a flight to Hong Kong aiming to return to Macau later tonight, the local government announced during Friday’s daily press conference of the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Center.

The group of Macau residents are university students. They boarded a flight at 8 p.m., on March 12. They are expected to arrive at the Hong Kong International Airport around 9:05 p.m. today.

Since neither Macau nor the Hong Kong government have listed Portugal as a high-prevalence region, this group of students will be able to return to Macau.

They will fly from Lisbon to Dubai and from Dubai to Hong Kong. Since none of these destinations has been listed as high-prevalence region, “there will be no special measures for the students,” an MGTO representative said.

The local government indicated no special measures to handle this group of students because they do not have records of visiting high-prevalence regions.

According to the city’s instructions, they will not go through medical examination nor will they be put into quarantine. However, the local government still proposed them to observe their health situation by their own means.

According to the Higher Education Bureau (DSES), currently, over 3,000 Macau residents are enrolled in university programs overseas. The bureau suggested that these Macau residents should return to Macau for safety reasons.

As explained by Chan Iok Wai, head of the Higher Education Institutions Students Department of DSES, once there is an outbreak of Covid-19 in any of these relevant countries, the situation will make it difficult for Macau students to return to the territory. “Students should try to return back to Macau in safe ways as soon as possible,” said Kou.

DSES will email overseas Macau students with two instructions: one on how to stay safe in their current country and another on how to take flights back to Macau.

The higher education authority has already contacted students who are still in Italy, Spain, Germany, France, among other countries with high prevalence.

As of the academic year of 2018, 340 Macau residents were studying in Portugal, 550 in the US, 653 in Australia, 296 in Canada, 35 in Korea, 15 in Germany, 15 in France, six in Italy, and two in Spain. There is also a small number of individuals studying in other European Union Countries.

Concerning Macau local universities, DSES still does not have a scheduled date for class resumption.

Regarding non-tertiary education, the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEJ) released the preliminary plan for primary schools and secondary schools.

As reported previously, the final year of high-school is planned to resume on March 30. On April 13, the entire high-school education will restart. DSEJ plans to reopen middle-schools on April 20. Regarding primary schools, the opening date is set for April 27 for fourth graders to sixth graders. Lower grades and special education are scheduled to resume only on May 4.

Today marks the 38^th day that Macau is free from Covid-19.

On Thursday, 12 people, all Macau local residents, were put into medical observation because of their travel records to high-prevalence regions in the past 14 days. Three of them returned from Germany, three came back from Spain, four visited Japan, and two traveled to Italy.

This morning, all 57 Macau residents who returned from Hubei tested negative for their second Covid-19 test. The third test will take place on next Thursday (March 19).

Julie Zhu