After success at home, health authority shifts attention worldwide

Pedestrians wearing protective masks cross a street in Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia, where coronavirus infections had swelled to nearly 150 as of Thursday night

Local health authorities are redirecting their attention regarding the outbreak of Covid-19 away from the mainland and toward other countries and regions, the director of the Health Bureau (SSM) Lei Chin Ion said yesterday during the daily press conference of the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Center.

It has been 37 days since Macau reported a new infection of the coronavirus, reminded Lei. The situation across the border to the mainland has also improved significantly. Given this change, it is time to focus attention on other countries and regions of the world where the spread of the disease is growing, noting particularly the cases of jurisdictions relatively close to Macau, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

“It’s been 37 days that we have not had any case confirmed and […] there is a slowdown in mainland China,” Lei said. “In our works on containment [of the virus] the MSAR is paying attention to the developments of the disease worldwide and particularly to the cases in the neighboring countries […] where the situation has been worsening and from where we do not rule out of the possibility of having some imported cases in Macau.”

Lei remarked that both the mainland and Hong Kong have already reported several imported cases from people returning from European countries.

The SSM director also advised citizens to avoid all unnecessary trips, especially to the countries where the outbreak is now very active, but also to other countries where the lack of resources to test suspicious cases of the disease might be concealing a lot of cases that have not been reported.

Lei added that Macau has applied restrictions to people arriving from Norway, who must now pass through a medical examination before entering Macau. This adds Norway to a list of countries with restrictions on entry to Macau that already includes South Korea, Italy, Iran, Germany, France, Spain, and Japan.

When asked by the media what criteria had led to the inclusion of these places, and not other countries or territories such as Hong Kong, Singapore or even the U.S., on the list of those against whom restrictions are enforced, Lei explained that three criteria primarily determine the outcome when considering a country or region as of high incidence.

These are “the number of infection cases, the rate of the infections and the measures that are undertaken to prevent and control [the disease]. If the measures are poor or unsafe in a certain place, even if their number of infected is low, we still do not rule out the possibility of considering it as an area of high incidence,” Lei said. The Health Bureau chief refuted the idea that other factors such as foreign policy or economy-related factors could influence the decision.

Lei assured the public that the epidemic situation is being evaluated on a daily basis and that the measures being applied are also being reviewed daily, noting that at this moment the health authorities are paying special attention to the evolution of the Covid-19 outbreak in Denmark as a potential place to be classified under the label of an area of high incidence.