A multi-department task force organises a COVID-19 prevention and control drill at the New Wholesale Market. Officers from the Public Security Police seal off all entrances and exits at the Market and set up a control zone.
An interdepartmental task force formed by nine government departments combined efforts with wholesalers of live food to conduct a pandemic prevention drill at Macao’s wholesale market.
The aim was to examine: shared systems for case-reporting; coordination of response; allocation of duties; source- and contact-tracing work; environmental-disinfection procedures; staff deployment; epidemiological investigations; arrangements for people holding red colour health codes; provision of livelihood support; and maintenance of supplies of live-food products, in case of a pandemic-related incident in the city’s wholesale market.
The drill aimed to enhance the pandemic-prevention standards within the live-food supply chain, and strengthen the responsiveness of, and collaboration between, front-line staff, to minimise the risk either of disease outbreak or disease spread, and ensure stable supplies in Macao of live-food products.
To safeguard live-food supplies and reduce any impact from the pandemic regarding market supplies, the Municipal Affairs Bureau strictly implements all sanitation and disease-prevention measures, and is working together with the health and public order departments, and with suppliers of live-food products, to formulate a pandemic-prevention contingency plan for Macao’s wholesale market.
The Municipal Affairs Bureau and the Health Bureau linked with the Public Security Police Force, the Judiciary Police, the Fire Services Bureau, the Macao Government Tourism Office, the Transport Bureau, the Social Welfare Bureau, and the Government Information Bureau, to conduct this interdepartmental drill.
Contingency plan to secure live-food supplies
Macao’s wholesale market currently hosts more than 200 businesses, responsible in aggregate for importing daily 230 tonnes of vegetables, 107 tonnes of fresh fruit, 600,000 eggs, and 16 tonnes of frozen and chilled poultry products. After entering Macau, most of these products are quarantined and then distributed within the wholesale market. In the event the wholesale market had to halt operations due to a pandemic-related outbreak of infection, thousands of families would be affected.
A stable supply of basic commodities is the foundation for maintaining social stability during the pandemic. Provisional measures developed under the wholesale market’s pandemic-prevention contingency plan aim to ensure that, in the event of an emergency shutdown of the wholesale market due to an outbreak of infection, orderly processes for product quarantine and for delivery of live-food products would continue.
The pandemic-prevention contingency plan for food supplies also covers public wet markets, supermarket chains, and other retail outlets. In that context it involves coordination of sources, flexible allocation of products, and temporary goods-supply measures at various retail outlets. In the event that measures to secure live-food supplies have to be implemented, the Government and the food industry will jointly strive to meet the public’s basic needs for major and commonly-consumed products, and secure stable and consistent supplies of fresh vegetables and live-food products.
Drill covered pandemic prevention and goods supply
The interdepartmental drill also simulated a situation in which a wholesale market worker was confirmed to be infected with COVID-19. The exercise entailed the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre sealing off the floor where the person was working, and immediately commencing registration and investigation of people on site. A number of other tasks were conducted, including: provision of livelihood support; contact tracing and transfer of the worker’s close contacts to medical isolation; movement of other on-site personnel to a hotel for medical observation; collecting environmental swabs; arranging nucleic acid testing for on-site personnel; and carrying out comprehensive cleaning and disinfection of the affected area.
As such measures would mean goods could not be quarantined and distributed within the wholesale market as normal, under the exercise, the Municipal Affairs Bureau immediately activated a contingency plan by moving the food-quarantine station to the fishery-catch quarantine site, and to a temporary wholesale point at the car park of the city’s slaughterhouse. After such quarantine processes had been completed, the goods were delivered to logistics-service providers, importers, wholesalers, and retailers through various sales channels, to minimise delays before the goods could be on shelves for consumers to purchase.
The drill was conducted at locations including the wholesale market, the fishery-catch quarantine site, the slaughterhouse car park, and supermarket-chain storage facilities.
