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The
lockdown in the Chinese special administrative region had been
due to end on Monday.
Macau imposed the shutdown last Monday, shuttering the city's
economic engine - its casinos - and forbidding residents from
leaving their apartments, except for essential activities such
as grocery shopping.
Macau has recorded around 1,700 coronavirus infections since
mid-June. More than 20,000 people are in mandatory quarantine as
the government adheres to China's zero-COVID policy, which aims
to stamp out all outbreaks, running counter to a global trend of
trying to coexist with the virus.
More than 90% of Macau's 600,000 residents are fully vaccinated
against COVID but this is the first time the city has had to
grapple with the fast-spreading Omicron variant.
The former Portuguese colony has only one public hospital for
its more than 600,000 residents, and its medical system was
already stretched before the coronavirus outbreak.
Authorities have set up a makeshift hospital in a sports dome
near the city's Las Vegas-style Cotai strip and have around 600
medical workers from the mainland assisting them.
In neighbouring Hong Kong, authorities are starting to loosen
draconian coronavirus restrictions even as daily cases top
3,000, in a push to reboot the financial hub and its economy.
(Reporting by Albee Zhang and Greg Torode; writing by Farah
Master; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and William Mallard)
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