Minimizing the risk of community spread of COVID-19 via institutional quarantine of high-risk travelers with serial viral RNA testing: A successful experience from Macao SAR, China.

Abstract

Macao, a special administrative region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China, is located in southern China and shares the border with mainland China. It is the most densely populated region in the world, with a population of 667400 and a total land area of 32.9 square kilometers in 2019. Since the first case diagnosed on January 22, 2020, there was a total of 45 laboratory-confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases in Macao, of which 43 patients (96%) were imported cases. To date, all patients had been discharged successfully from Centro Hospitalar Conde de São Januário, a designated hospital to manage all COVID-19 patients in Macao. Eventually, no patient died, and no local community outbreak was noted. This opinion review describes the underlying factors that could have contributed to the successful experience in Macao SAR, China, which include the following: (1) Early implementation of containment measures; (2) Large-scale quarantine using hotel rooms to reduce the risk of a local outbreak; and (3) Multidisciplinary co-operation and transparency of information to the public. Although the successful experience in Macao SAR, China, may not be generalized to other regions, it should not be unreasonable to be well prepared with sufficient logistic support to conduct timely containment and early detection of episodic cases to prevent the backsliding of COVID-19 outbreak.