Residents line up to undergo COVID 19 nucleic acid tests in Macao, Aug 4, 2021. XINHUA HONG KONG BEIJING Macao shut down a popular shopping mall next to MGM China's Casino resort on the city's main peninsula after several COVID 19 infections were found, as authorities raced to the biggest outbreak yet in the SAR.
One central shopping mall will be shut for one week, while more than a dozen other zones or buildings have also been ordered to close, authorities said. The Chinese mainland reported 94 locally-transmitted confirmed COVID 19 cases for Wednesday.
On Tuesday, a Grand Lisboa hotel was locked down with more than 500 people inside, which is one of the city's most famous hotels.
The city has reported more than 1,000 cases of coronaviruses since mid-June, with more than 14,000 people in mandatory quarantine. Since an outbreak in October 2021, the territory had been largely COVID-free.
A shopping mall inside Four Seasons Hotel owned by Las Vegas Sands Macao unit Sands China was ordered to shut down this week after several cases were found.
The city is closed with most of its restaurants shutting down and most of the facilities are only available for takeaway. More than 600,000 residents have been asked to stay at home when possible and be required to take part in three citywide COVID 19 tests this week. People are required to take rapid antigen tests in between.
The government said casinos were allowed to stay open in a bid to protect jobs. Macao gets more than 80 percent of its tax revenues from the industry, with most of the population employed directly or indirectly by the casino resorts.
The residents line up for COVID 19 testing, July 6, 2022, in Shanghai. Residents of parts of Shanghai and Beijing have been ordered to undergo further testing after the discovery of new cases in the two cities. CHEN SI AP Although casinos are physically open, there are few patrons and only a small number of staff with many employees asked to stay home to comply with the government's request.
The National Health Commission said that 39 COVID 19 patients were discharged from hospitals on Wednesday after recovering from a hospital in the mainland. The total number of COVID 19 patients discharged from hospitals after recovery reached 220,265 on the mainland as of Wednesday.