Quarantined students pressure hotels with ‘personalized demands’

Macau students currently under quarantine in hotels have been showing their “strength” by asking for multiple types of “personalized demands” from their sheltering hotels.
During Friday’s press conference of the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Center, Inês Chan Lou, from the Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO), delivered an emotional message to the quarantined Macau students as well as their parents. These Macau local residents were suggested to demonstrate their civil responsibilities.
Currently, at the three quarantine hotels, Pousada Marina Infante, Golden Crown China Hotel, and Regency Art Hotel, there are 856 people under quarantine, including 139 non-local workers.
On Friday, March 20, 285 Macau residents, including students, registered for the government’s chartered buses. The local government will fetch these residents in four schedules. Each schedule, passengers will be divided into five to seven cars.
Speaking at the press conference, Inês Chan made a proposal towards quarantined Macau students and their parents.
“The hotels have received all kinds of requests lots of requests from quarantined students, with parents also wanting to their children’s demands to be met and given the requested items,” said Inês Chan.
Chan explained that due to the large number of returning students, both the Macau government and the quarantine hotels are facing difficult challenges. To assist quarantined individuals, hotel staff need to deliver food and other products to each room multiple times on a daily basis.
“We hope that they [students and parents] understand that this is a little inconvenient for them. But for the entire society, I hope we can all work together,” Chan appealed. “Besides fulfilling the obligations as parents, we also need to fulfill responsibilities as citizens.”
According to Chan, each quarantine hotel allows members of the public to drop items at the designated place outside the hotel between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Only one drop-off is allowed daily.
As of today’s noon, a total of 1,373 overseas Macau students have registered to return to their hometown in Macau.
The SAR government expects approximately 95% of these Macau residents to eventually return to the city. These students will be transported to a quarantine hotel once they set foot in the territory.
Starting from today, the Macau SAR government is temporarily utilizing the Grand Coloane Resort as the fourth hotel designated for medical observations. The Grand Coloane Resort is situated in Coloane and has a total supply of 208 rooms.
With the joining of the fourth hotel, Macau has now four quarantine hotels providing a total of 1,132 rooms available for quarantine.
In order to cope with larger quarantine demands, soon, the SAR government will announce the fifth quarantine hotel.
Lo Iek Long, representative of the Health Bureau (SSM), said that the SAR government “can’t evaluate” the worst-case scenario for the city’s Covid-19 situation. However, he wants the public to be rest assured that the government is fully prepared to fight the battle.
As of today, 139 non-local workers have been mandated to go into the hotel quarantine due to the city’s regulation.
According to Macau’s law, when workers are mandatorily put into quarantine and be absent from work because of the quarantine, absent working days will be counted as reasonable leaves meaning that the government should account these days as paid work days.
However, according to Lok, the law is only protecting civil servants in that aspect.
“For civil servants, if the quarantine is mandatorily required by the government, their absence from work will be regarded as reasonable,” said Lo. “From the information the Labour Affairs Bureau provided, employees and employers in the private sector can negotiate workers’ quarantine.”
Macau resident confirmed with infection in Beijing

A Macau local resident was confirmed to have been infected with COVID-19, the National Health Commission of China reported to Macau today (March 20).
The patient is a 19-year-old woman. Her infection was confirmed in Beijing after she flew from the United States to South Korea and then to Beijing.