Macau cancels negative Covid-19 test requirement for casino workers

Casino workers will only be required to take a rapid antigen test at home before turning up for work.

Macau.- A measure that required casino workers to present a negative Covid-19 test issued within 48 hours has been lifted by authorities due to overcrowding at testing stations. The measure had been criticised by the president of the New Macau Gaming Staff Rights Association.

Authorities said that the gathering of people at test stations to comply with the rule could prove “adverse to the prevention of Covid-19 spread, considering the huge number of workers in the construction sector and casinos.”

Leong Iek Hou, a senior health official, said that while Macau’s daily quota of 90,000 nucleic acid tests should have been sufficient to cover all sectors, some people had been turning up much earlier than their appointment time, leading to a build-up of people at test centres.

Due to the high number of Covid-19 cases, the Sheraton Grand Macao at the Londoner Macao casino resort on Cotai has been added to the list of hotels used for quarantine purposes. The government is already using the 2,300 hotel rooms at the Parisian Macao casino resort as quarantine accommodation.

Meanwhile, the Hotel and Casino Fortuna was added to the list of Red Code lockdown areas after one of the hotel workers reportedly tested positive.