How Macau’s health care system was primed to beat the pandemic, despite only opening a medical school months ago

Macau University of Science and Technology opened its Faculty of Medicine in September, marking a new chapter for the former Portuguese colony. Its success in controlling the Covid-19 outbreak has led to calls for help from around the world.

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Published: 10:45am, 26 Apr 2020Updated: 11:50am, 27 Apr 2020

On January 22, Macau’s first Covid-19 case was confirmed: a 52-year-old woman from Wuhan who had taken the high-speed rail to Zhuhai and crossed into the Chinese special administrative region a few days before.

Macau’s chief executive, Ho Iat-seng, who had been sworn in only a month earlier as the city commemorated the 20-year anniversary of its handover from Portugal, announced the creation of the Novel Coronavirus Response and Coordination Centre, which replaced the Interdepartmental Working Group Against Pneumonia of Unknown Cause he had set up just two weeks earlier, on January 5.

On January 22, I was riding shotgun with Dr Billy Chan, 59, a medical simulation training director at the Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST). Chan was running errands around Macau in preparation for a medical conference, and as his Mercedes cruised into the New Orient Landmark Hotel’s underground car park, we saw two ambulances in the loading docks. Paramedics in hazmat suits stood sentinel as Chan remarked, “Mate, that’s not right. Something’s going down. Could be coronavirus.”

After his meeting, Chan went to pay the car park fee in the lobby, where we learned that the 52-year-old woman from Wuhan had been a guest at the hotel. Several floors above us, emergency responders were sterilising her room and removing two of the woman’s travelling companions.

Ambulances in the New Orient Landmark Hotel’s underground car park, in Macau, on January 22. Photo: Christopher Cottrell

We left and the two ambulances were soon lined up behind us as the Mercedes idled in the misty snarl of downtown Macau traffic.

“Take a picture,” Chan said. I fumbled to get a few crooked shots of the lead ambulance just off our rear bumper. As the light turned green and traffic started to move, the ambulances picked up speed, turning at the intersection towards the special government triage centre at the Centro Hospitalar Conde de São Januário.