Officials from the Macau Health Bureau stated that the government would implement community restrictions if any local cases of COVID-19 occur in the future, however it will not close down all casinos.
Macau has not recorded any new cases of community transmission for over five months, leading mainland China to agree to remove mandatory quarantine on arrivals from Macau and to gradually resume the Individual Visit Scheme (IVS).
However, the Director of the Health Bureau, Lei Chin Ion, emphasized earlier this week that should Macau recorded just one case of local transmission in the future, the SAR would be considered as high to medium risk area, prompting application of a “circuit breaker” with all entry restrictions immediately resumed and IVS suspended again.
Macau closed all casinos for 15 days in February to control the spread of COVID-19, however the coordinator of the Disease Prevention and Surveillance Center, Leong Iek Hou, clarified this “circuit breaker” did not indicate that all casinos would close down immediately once a new case occurs.
The health authority added that it will resume the provision of one-off COVID-19 tests for frontline casino workers from Thursday. About 10,000 casino workers had already received the test as of late July, with the rest of 50,000 frontline staff to be arranged in the coming days.
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