Macao launched on Tuesday (9 February) its vaccination programme against COVID-19 infection, with a capacity to provide a single dose of vaccine to 5,000 people per day.

As of 9pm on Tuesday, 595 people had received a first jab of the vaccine type produced by Sinopharm. As of that time, an additional 4,033 people had been able to confirm an appointment for initial vaccination.

The current phase of the vaccination programme is for people classified as in a priority group. Those groups are: front-line workers in the anti-epidemic effort; people deemed at high risk in terms of occupational exposure – i.e., aviation and public transport workers, and employees from the cold-chain and fresh-food sectors; and individuals intending to visit countries or areas with incidence of COVID-19.

Other Macao ID holders can now reserve an appointment online, in order to receive an initial dose of vaccine from 22 February onwards.

For details of the vaccination programme, please refer to a dedicated webpage https://www.ssm.gov.mo/apps1/covid19vaccine/en.aspx. An appointment for vaccination can be made via https://eservice.ssm.gov.mo/covidvacbook.

Macao has not recorded a single case of local transmission of COVID-19 infection since the beginning of the alert in 2020.

A total of 122 people from the group that returned to the city on 21 January via one of two flights from Tokyo, Japan, is still undergoing general health monitoring. On Tuesday, each of the 122 individuals took a nucleic acid test – the fourth since their return to Macao – and the same day, an antibody test, the second since their return. All results for both tests showed the people were ‘negative’ for COVID-19 infection.

Each of the 122 was described as stable in terms of their health and had not showed any signs of COVID-19 infection.

Of the 122 people undergoing general health monitoring, nine are staying in the Public Health Clinical Centre in Coloane, due to their in-flight closed proximity with confirmed COVID-19 cases in the inbound flights from Tokyo; and 113 are staying at Grand Coloane Resort (i.e., 97 of the flight passengers, and the 16 flight crew members).

The latest nasal-swab tests for the two confirmed COVID-19 cases in relation to the Tokyo flights, i.e. the 47th and 48th cases to be treated in Macao, still showed the individuals were ‘positive’ for COVID-19 infection.

The 47th case involves a 43-year-old female Macao resident. The patient still had a low grade fever.

The 48th case involves a 30-year-old male Macao resident who also holds a Portuguese passport. He had not complained of any illness.