Quarantine-free visit between Macau and Zhuhai resumes

Individuals travelling from Macau to Zhuhai must hold a nucleic acid test (NAT) certificate – issued within 24 hours of intended arrival – proving they are ‘negative’ for Covid-19 infection, as a condition of quarantine-free entry to Zhuhai.

The update was announced yesterday by the Zhuhai-Macau Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism.

Any person intending to enter Zhuhai from Macau must make an advanced health declaration via the WeChat official account “Health Zhuhai,” and notify after arrival either their neighbourhood committee, or chosen hotel or entity. 

 The 24-hour test result presented on arrival is regarded as the first test; so those entering Zhuhai should take another test within 48 hours.

For three days before departure for Zhuhai, individuals should in principle follow point of origin-to-place of destination between their place of work, and the place they lodge. They should also avoid either taking any public transport, being part of a crowd, or joining any form of gathering.

The abrupt announcement of border normalization between the two regions were questioned yesterday at the regular press briefing. 

Some journalists questioned the transparency of the communications between the two cities.

Rejecting the criticism, public health doctor Leong Iek Hou emphasized that communications between various agencies from the two places on various topics had been constant.

“For example, technical communications on health issues between the health bureaus from Macau and Zhuhai have been ceaseless,” Leong said. “Discussions have been held continuously on the risks [of Covid-19] in Macau.”

She added that discussions on when border normalization should resume were also held.

“However, the two places needed to come to an agreement, given there were many areas of considerations,” Leong remarked. “Understanding many have the need to cross the border, we made the announcements as soon as we obtained a confirmation from Zhuhai.”

Another point of criticism was that the abrupt announcement on border normalization had prompted crowds of people who wanted to travel to Zhuhai to gather at various NAT stations across the city. 

  This has led to the government bending its rules to upgrade eligibility of free-of-charge – in fact government-sponsored – NATs so that the results could be used for border-crossing purposes.

The government stressed that such an arrangement was a one-off and would only be valid for tests taken on August 2 and 3.

Leong said that there had been hours between the announcement and the border normalization, hinting that there should not have been any confusion.  AL