All civil servants eligible for vaccination must receive two doses (primary vaccination) of a vaccine against Covid-19 before February 21, the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Center said yesterday during the regular weekly briefing.
Although there are just three days between this communication and the deadline established, Dr. Leong Iek Hou, coordinator at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that this requirement should not pose a problem since the vaccination rate among those professionals is already high.
According to the figures cited by Leong, 83.6% of all civil servants have already received two or three doses of the vaccine and 85.6% have already received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Those who cannot be vaccinated due to legitimate medical reasons will remain exempt from these requirements, and must continue to present valid negative nucleic acid test (NAT) results every seven days to be allowed to continue to work.
The deadline for the vaccination of civil servants comes at the same time as the measure requiring all travellers over 12 years of age returning to Macau from Hong Kong or Taiwan to present a valid certificate demonstrating that they have completed their primary vaccination (two doses for most vaccines).
Exceptions are the Janssen-Cilag vaccine and CanSino Bio adenovirus vaccine, both of which have a primary vaccination plan of a single dose, and the Zhifei Longcom ZIFIVAX, which has a primary vaccination plan of three doses.
Leong also reaffirmed that in cases where the primary vaccination course was completed over seven months ago, people must receive a booster shot to enter Macau.
“We demand that people complete the primary vaccination scheme. In cases where they have received two doses, but over seven months have elapsed since their last inoculation, then they must vaccinate with a third dose to comply with our entry requirements,” Leong explained.
Regarding whether the measures applicable to Hong Kong and Taiwan will be extended to visitors from the mainland, Leong said, “We don’t discount the possibility of imposing this requirement on other people.”
Shorter quarantine for Taiwan arrivals
Concurrent with the new measures banning non-vaccinated people from entering Macau from Hong Kong or Taiwan, health authorities have also adjusted quarantine measures for these travelers.
From midnight on February 21, those who enter Macau or who have already entered but have travelled from Hong Kong or Taiwan within the past 21 days must undergo 14 days’ quarantine under medical observation.
The measure remains unchanged for Hong Kong, but amounts to a reduction for Taiwan travelers from the current 21-day quarantine period.
As Leong explained, people arriving from Taiwan who have remained there for at least 21 days before entering Macau must undergo a “rigorous seven days” of self-managed observation of their health, after completing their 14 days in quarantine. “‘Rigorous’ means that they are banned from entering the mainland, and during these seven days they must mandatorily undergo three NATs, on the second, fifth and seventh days. If they fail to comply with these rules, their Health Code will turn yellow until they fulfill these obligations,” she concluded.
