Macau on Monday closed all of its casinos for the first time in more than two years following a coronavirus outbreak in the world’s largest gambling hub.
Authorities have ordered non-essential businesses, including over 30 casinos, to shut down for a week.
According to official figures, the city has recorded 1,526 Covid cases since mid-June.
Gaming stocks slid on Monday amid concerns over tighter rules in China’s SAR.
Around 19,000 people have been placed in mandatory quarantine as the city battles its worst Covid-19 outbreak since early 2020.
Schools and entertainment venues, including bars and cinemas, had already been closed under previous guidelines.
Over the weekend, Macau’s Government Information Bureau said all companies would have to cease operations unless they were “considered essential to the community and the daily life of the public”.
“The final step is to contain the spread of Covid-19 in the community,” the office said in a statement on Saturday.
It has also ordered people to stay at home and halted food service in restaurants.
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More than 90% of Macau residents have received two doses of Covid vaccines. It’s unclear how many have also received their booster doses, but the city is facing the rapidly expanding Omicron variant for the first time.
In recent weeks, officials have set up a makeshift hospital and turned several casino resorts into medical facilities, as the former Portuguese colony has only one public hospital serving more than 600,000 residents.
They have also tested residents en masse and locked down apartment buildings and hotels where infections have been detected.
Macau is following China’s strict “zero Covid” strategy, with even a handful of cases leading to mass testing, enforced quarantines and lockdowns of neighborhoods and even cities.
Although Macau hasn’t imposed the kind of citywide lockdown seen in mainland China, it’s effectively closed with most services suspended.
Terry Ng, an equity analyst at Daiwa Capital Markets Hong Kong, told the BBC that Macau authorities are “stuck between a rock and a hard place”.
“Since tourists in mainland China accounted for 71% of all tourists and more than 90% of gross gaming revenue, they must properly comply with mainland China’s highly restrictive zero-Covid policy,” he said.
Gambling is illegal in mainland China but legal in Macau, which, like Hong Kong, is a special administrative region of China.
Macau’s casino shares tumbled on Monday as the restrictions went into effect.
Shares of Sands China, a subsidiary of casino giant Las Vegas Sands, were trading 7% lower by midday in Hong Kong. SJM Holdings, founded by the late Hong Kong tycoon Stanley Ho, fell 6.1%.
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