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Saturday, Feb 22, 2025
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Macau shuts all casinos as city’s worst outbreak widens
Macau will shut almost all business premises, including casinos, for a week from Monday as a Covid-19 outbreak in the gambling hub showed few signs of abating.
Essential business operations, including supermarkets and pharmacies, will remain open, officials said at a press briefing Saturday. Wet markets and clinics can also maintain operations, as well as restaurants that are limited to takeaway food.
The lockdown will start from July 11 to 18, during which all companies and establishments that perform industrial or commercial activities must suspend operations.
Other regulated premises will stay closed, including cinemas, beauty parlors, bars, salons, and public swimming pools.
Yet, public services, including suppliers of water, electricity, gas, fuel, telecommunications, transport, and waste collection, will operate as usual to maintain necessary social functions.
All are banned from leaving their homes unless they have urgent matters to attend to or must head out to purchase necessary daily supplies.
When visiting these premises, citizens must observe social distancing and scan the venues’ QR codes using the Macau Health Code app. Adults must also wear the KN95 mask when they are out. Only underage citizens will be allowed to wear other kinds of masks.
The Macau government thanked citizens for their cooperation and hoped to achieve the goal of “dynamic Covid clearance” together and return to normalcy as soon as possible.
The measure of shutting down business premises, which follows multiple rounds of mass testing, returns the enclave to its toughest pandemic restrictions. Macau announced 71 new cases on Saturday, bringing the total number of infections in the latest outbreak starting June 18 to 1,374.
Macau had previously shut schools, public venues, and entertainment outlets, including bars to cinemas. It’s also locked down SJM Holdings Ltd.’s Grand Lisboa casino hotel after a cluster of 13 cases was found linked to the venue, trapping some 500 people inside.
Macau is following China’s Covid playbook, relying on mass testing and the confinement of residents to identify and then quash transmission chains. But the policies have left the mainland mired in a cycle of unpredictable, stop-start restrictions that take an enormous economic and social toll.
The lockdown will start from July 11 to 18, during which all companies and establishments that perform industrial or commercial activities must suspend operations.
Other regulated premises will stay closed, including cinemas, beauty parlors, bars, salons, and public swimming pools.
Yet, public services, including suppliers of water, electricity, gas, fuel, telecommunications, transport, and waste collection, will operate as usual to maintain necessary social functions.
All are banned from leaving their homes unless they have urgent matters to attend to or must head out to purchase necessary daily supplies.
When visiting these premises, citizens must observe social distancing and scan the venues’ QR codes using the Macau Health Code app. Adults must also wear the KN95 mask when they are out. Only underage citizens will be allowed to wear other kinds of masks.
The Macau government thanked citizens for their cooperation and hoped to achieve the goal of “dynamic Covid clearance” together and return to normalcy as soon as possible.
The measure of shutting down business premises, which follows multiple rounds of mass testing, returns the enclave to its toughest pandemic restrictions. Macau announced 71 new cases on Saturday, bringing the total number of infections in the latest outbreak starting June 18 to 1,374.
Macau had previously shut schools, public venues, and entertainment outlets, including bars to cinemas. It’s also locked down SJM Holdings Ltd.’s Grand Lisboa casino hotel after a cluster of 13 cases was found linked to the venue, trapping some 500 people inside.
Macau is following China’s Covid playbook, relying on mass testing and the confinement of residents to identify and then quash transmission chains. But the policies have left the mainland mired in a cycle of unpredictable, stop-start restrictions that take an enormous economic and social toll.
