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Macau: New year holidays extended by two days to slow virus spread
7:34 CAT | 28 Jan 2020
Photo: Lusa
The Macau Government announced on Tuesday an extension of the “Chinese New Year holidays” for the civil service for two days to reduce the risk of contagion of the new Chinese coronavirus.
“The suspension of work for civil servants on 30 and 31 January is intended to avoid crowding and reduce the possibility of contagion,” said the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture at a press conference.
The day after the seventh imported case of infection with the new coronavirus (2019-nCoV) was registered in the territory, Ieong U said that the public daycare centers “will suspend service as of tomorrow [Wednesday],” referring the announcement of reopening to a later date.
She added that the resumption of classes will also be postponed “once again,” but the new date will be announced “in early February. On Jan. 24, local authorities had postponed the resumption of classes in non-higher education from 3 to 10 February, while in higher education it was postponed to 11 February.
The secretary appealed to private entities, businesses and crèches to follow “the preventive measures decreed by the local government”.
The Secretary for Administration and Justice said that the Chinese central government had suspended the issuance of individual visas for tourists from all over the country as of today. André Cheong said that the closure of Macau’s borders with China is out of the question for the time being.
“The measures taken by the Macau authorities are having a good effect and in relation to the borders we do not have that decision, but we have already considered other measures which will be applied when necessary”, he stressed.
On Monday, Chinese travel agencies were no longer able to sell hotel reservations and group travel following the Chinese government’s decision to suspend tours at home and abroad following the outbreak of the new coronavirus, which has already caused 106 deaths and more than 4,600 infections in China.
No residents of Hubei or Wuhan have entered since Monday 00:00 and more than 300 people have been barred, Wong Kim Hong of the Public Security Police Corps (PSCC) told reporters.
On Sunday, the Macau government imposed a medical declaration for any resident of Hubei province to prove that the person is not infected and to do so, he/she must have spent 14 days in isolation and under medical supervision in official establishments.
In addition to the mainland of China, cases of infection have also been reported in Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the United States, Singapore, Vietnam, Nepal, Malaysia, France, Germany, Australia and Canada.
Some countries, such as the United States, France, Germany and Portugal are preparing with the Chinese authorities the withdrawal of their citizens from Wuhan, where there are also about 25 Portuguese nationals. Japan has announced that it will send a plane today to withdraw about 200 of its nationals from that Chinese city.
The Chinese authorities admitted that the virus was spreading rapidly.
Infected people can transmit the disease during the incubation period, which takes between one day and two weeks, without the virus being detected.
The Chinese government has decided to extend the Lunar New Year holiday period, which was due to end on Thursday, in an attempt to limit population movement.
The Wuhan region is under quarantine, a situation that affects 56 million people.
Source: Lusa
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