Covid-19 | Gov’t encourages vaccination with PCR waiver

Following hints last week of a new policy for boosting the local Covid-19 immunization rate, Dr Leong Iek Hou of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention announced yesterday that certain individuals who have completed both vaccinations will be exempted from the regular and the special swab test.
She stressed that the waiver will not apply to cross-border travel.
According to local Covid-19 control guidelines, individuals attending certain events or working in particular professions are required to take a regular swab test or a special swab test prior to attending the event.
For example, performers at shows where mask wearing and social distancing of two meters are impossible are required to take a Covid-19 swab test prior to the commencement of the show.
That does not apply solely to performers, though. Another scenario is sports events, such as the recent Sands China Macao International 10K running championship, at which athletes were required to receive a negative swab test result as part of their qualification.
In contrast, athletes participating in the upcoming Macao International Dragon Boat races will be subject to updated requirements. Under the new policy, those athletes who have received two injections 14 days prior to their race days will not need to take the swab test.
Other athletes will need to take the swab test and receive a negative result in order to qualify for the race.
The new policy will also apply on occasions such as group festive celebrations, entertainment and leisure events, marches, as well as dinner receptions organized by an association hosting 400 people or more.
Private occasions, such as wedding and birthday banquets, are not subject to the requirement: as is currently the case, participants at such events will not be required to take swab test.
Besides not applying to cross-border travel, the new swab test waiver will not apply to individuals working in the chilled food handling industry.
In another move designed to encourage vaccination uptake, in two months the government will cancel arrangements for unified or grouped swab tests for participants joining large events.
For example, athletes running in the 10K champion were catered to with grouped swab tests, in which a specified period was available for them to take the test. Leong announced yesterday that from July 18, these arrangements will no longer be made.
From then on, participants at large events where swab tests are needed will take the test at their own expense.
The major community vaccination station located at the Macao Forum, which was also hinted at last week, will be launched on May 20. Bookings are available from today.
The station’s operating hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. The Sinopharm inactivated vaccine will be provided. There is a daily quota of 2,000 injections.
Vaccination recipients aged 60 years and over will then have the choice to get inoculated at the new station, at government health centers or the government hospital.
Reacting to the latest infection recorded in Macau, which concerns a returnee from Nepal, the health system is intensifying measures for incomers with positive antibody test results.
Seven days will be added to the original quarantine period should they test positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. As such, antibody-positive entrants with travel history in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Nepal and Brazil will face 35 days of quarantine upon arrival.

Vaccination points to
be run at Sands, MGM
Leong revealed yesterday that the government will run off-site vaccination services at two of the six local gambling concessionaires’ properties, namely the MGM and the Sands China.
On May 24 and 25, inoculation points will operate at the MGM; and from May 31 to June 3 at the Sands.
However, the government did not disclose at which property the vaccination services will operate.