Addressing yesterday’s press conference about Macau’s novel coronavirus situation, Tai Wa Hou, a clinical director of the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre, announced that a new COVID-19 vaccination facility will open at the newly completed Mong Ha Sports Centre next Monday, in response to the increasing number of residents getting their jabs.

According to Tai, the new “large-sized community vaccination station” will be operated by the Health Bureau (SSM) in collaboration with the private Kiang Wu Hospital.

The new Mong Ha inoculation facility will run from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. It will be used for the administration of Sinopharm jabs.

The construction of the Mong Ha Sports Centre was completed early this month, a redevelopment project which converted the original single-storey sports pavilion into a five-storey building.

Inoculation places rise to 3,000 at Macau Forum

In addition, Tai also announced that from today the number of places for COVID-19 vaccinations available per day at the Macau Forum inoculation facility in Zape will rise from 2,000 to 3,000.

According to Tai, the Health Bureau has now also extended the opening hours of the Macau Forum inoculation facility, which from today runs from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Before today, it opened from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

COVID-19 inoculations already started in two more facilities on Tuesday, two clinics run by the Macau Federation of Trade Unions (commonly known as Gung Luen) – one of the city’s biggest community associations, which are located in Toi San district and near Praça do Tap Seac. A total of 110 places for vaccinations are available per day at the two Gung Luen clinics, which are used for Sinopharm inoculations. The two clinics’ provision of COVID-19 inoculations was announced in the government’s COVID-19 press conference on Friday last week.

The Macau Federation of Trade Unions runs three clinics, officially known as Workers’ Clinics, in Macau. The clinic which does not provide COVID-19 vaccinations is located near Praça de Ponte e Horta (known in Cantonese as Si Ta Hau).

Including the two Gung Luen clinics, Macau’s COVID-19 vaccinations are now carried out at 17 facilities, comprising two inoculation facilities at the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre, eight public health centres, two public health stations, the Macau Forum “large-sized community vaccination station”, as well as the private Kiang Wu Hospital, the University Hospital run by the private Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) in Taipa, and the two Gung Luen clinics.

The number of places for COVID-19 vaccinations available per day has increased to 550 at the Kiang Wu inoculation facility and 330 at the MUST University Hospital inoculation facility, which took effect on Tuesday.

Inoculation places to rise to 10,000

During yesterday’s press conference, Tai also said that from today 400 additional places for COVID-19 vaccinations in total are available per day at the two inoculation facilities at the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre, the eight public health centres, and the two public health stations. Consequently, according to Tai, 4,000 or so places are now available per day at the 12 inoculation facilities.

According to previous Health Bureau announcements, a maximum of 5,000 places for COVID-19 vaccinations in total were initially planned for the two inoculation facilities at the public hospital, the eight public health centres, and the two public health stations, after the government’s COVID-19 vaccination programme was launched in February. However, Tai said yesterday, the Health Bureau had later lowered the number of places available per day at the 12 inoculation facilities as there were not so many residents getting their jabs, but in recent weeks more and more residents have been getting their shots.

Tai said yesterday that including the additional 1,000 places at the Macau Forum inoculation facility and the 400 extra places at the 12 inoculation facilities, about 8,200 places for COVID-19 vaccinations are now available per day at Macau’s 17 inoculation facilities.

Tai also said that 1,000 vaccination places will be available per day initially after the new Mong Ha inoculation facility comes into service. Tai said that the number of places available per day could increase to 2,000 a week after the Mong Ha facility starts operating. Consequently, Tai said, the total number of COVID-19 vaccination places in Macau would increase to around 10,000 at that time.

Only three out of Macau’s total of 17 inoculation facilities are used for BioNTech inoculations, namely the public hospital’s blood sample collection room, the Ocean Gardens Health Centre and the Ilha Verde Health Centre.

Tai also pointed out that currently 85 percent of potential vaccinees in Macau choose Sinopharm jabs while the rest opt for BioNTech shots, because of which, he said, the Health Bureau has decided to earmark the new Mong Ha facility for Sinopharm inoculations.

As of 4 p.m. yesterday, 267,738 doses of COVID-19 vaccine had been administered to 187,087 people in Macau, comprising 105,197 who had received their first jab and 81,890 who had received their second jab.

According to the website of the Health Bureau’s COVID-19 vaccination programme, the 267,738 doses of COVID-19 vaccine that had been administered as of 4 p.m. yesterday comprised 229,090 Sinopharm jabs (85.6 percent of the total) and 38,648 BioNTech jab (14.4 percent of the total).

A total of 30 adverse events were reported in the past 24 hours (until 4 p.m. yesterday). The total number of adverse events since the start of the vaccination drive stood at 1,080, or 0.4 percent of the total number of jabs, including three serious cases.

Macau has not recorded a new COVID-19 case for six days, while no local case has been confirmed in 444 days.

Tai Wa Hou, one of the three clinical directors of the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre, addresses yesterday’s press conference about the city’s novel coronavirus (COVID-19) situation. Photo: GCS

This undated handout photo taken from the website of the Infrastructure Development Office (GDI) yesterday shows the recently completed Mong Ha Sports Centre in Areia Preta district.