The Macao Special Administrative Region (MSAR) Government would hold several promotional sessions to enhance the community’s understanding of the Government’s Contingency Plan for Large-scale COVID-19 Epidemic, aiming to help the public cooperate with the Government’s work, in the event that a massive number of COVID-19 cases occurred in Macao.

The Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Ms Ao Ieong U, made the comments to reporters on the sidelines of the first such briefing session held today at the Macao East Asian Games Dome. More than 300 representatives from local associations and other entities attended today’s session.

Once the Government activated the Contingency Plan – should the situation necessitate such a step – the concerted effort of the entire community would be required, in order to carry out anti-epidemic work, said Ms Ao Ieong.

The Secretary added that local associations and entities would have to prepare their respective contingency plans, and public departments would work closely with them.

In addition, the Government planned to hold in May a drill on the operation of the community treatment centre for COVID-19. Members of the public would be invited to join the drill, in order to familiarise themselves with the operations of the facility.

Experience from neighbouring cities in their handling of COVID-19 outbreaks, highlighted that a massive outbreak in the community created severe challenges not only to the healthcare system, but also in terms of resupply of products necessary for day-to-day living, said Ms Ao Ieong. The MSAR Government was formulating a detailed plan for ‘grid’ management of community districts in the event of a massive COVID-19 outbreak. In such a case, it would be impossible for the Government to deliver supply to each household. Therefore, an initial thought was to enable certain people from each household – within a designated time slot – to do grocery shopping in supermarkets or to resupply themselves at pharmacies, she added.

The Government hoped to do further planning in order to enhance preparations in the continued fight against the epidemic. This would include optimising its preparedness for various scenarios, while encouraging vaccination take-up among the Macao public. Such effort would help minimise the number of severe or even fatal COVID-19 cases, and maximise the protection of the public’s health, said Ms Ao Ieong.

Reporters asked about the operation of nucleic acid test stations in the event of a large-scale community outbreak. The Secretary said the MSAR Government had a plan to request assistance from the mainland, should staff shortages arise at testing stations. In addition, the Government had purchased a number of rapid antigen-test kits, in order to meet any need for members of the public to do a test every day in the event of an outbreak. The result of any such rapid antigen test would have to be uploaded to the Macao Health Code system. The establishment of such capability in the Health Code system was being finalised, said Ms Ao Ieong.