COVID-19 pandemic in Macau

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The COVID-19 pandemic in Macau was a part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case of the disease in the special administrative region of China was confirmed on 22 January 2020. The city saw nine more cases by 4 February, but no more cases until 15 March, when imported cases began to appear.^[3] Stringent government measures^[4] have included the 15-day closure of all 81 casinos in the territory in February 2020; in addition, effective 25 March, the territory disallowed connecting flights at its airport as well as entry by all non-residents (with the exception of residents of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan), and from 6 April, the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge was closed to public transport and most other traffic.

The territory had not suffered a major outbreak of COVID-19 until June 2022, when a cluster of locally transmitted COVID-19 cases prompted the government to implement restrictions, including the closure of non-essential businesses and repeated rounds of mandatory mass testing of its entire population,^[5] in line with mainland China's Zero-COVID policy (Portuguese: Meta Dinâmica de Infecção Zero).^[6][7]

At a press conference on 5 January 2023, the Macau Health Bureau director Alvis Lo Iek Long stated that COVID-19 had become an endemic disease in Macau, and announced the cancellation of almost all entry curbs and measures. The statement followed a transition period that began on 8 December 2022 with the gradual easing of transmission curbs.^[8][9]