Abstract
BackgroundIn 2020, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) was in proximity to the second epicenter of COVID-19 in China, where Macau and Zhuhai are located. Both cities communicated, cooperated, and coordinated under different backgrounds to play a "cocity" effect in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.ResultsIn 2020, Macau and Zhuhai had a total of 46 and 112 confirmed cases of COVID-19, respectively. Ten and 98 confirmed cases in two cities that were imported from mainland China or were the result of local infection caused by imported cases of patients who recovered and were discharged during the first period (January 1 to March 14), respectively. During the second period (March 15 to December 31), both of the cities mainly disposed of imported cases (36 and 14 cases in Macau and Zhuhai) from abroad. In the third period (July 15 to December 31), the two cities gradually returned to normal work and life and economic recovery. Under dynamically adjusted prevention and control measures, the two cities have adopted a series of border control measures based on domestic and abroad changes in the COVID-19 epidemic situation. They had closely cooperated and shared information in terms of epidemic information docking, traffic control, patient care, and material guarantees. The prevention and control policies and measures are basically the same in the two cities and different in the 3 time periods. Health QR code exchange was the basis of mobility of residents between the two cities.ConclusionsBoth cities had zero tolerance for COVID-19 cases and adopted a suppression strategy to accurately grasp the changing epidemic situation at any time. There was no community transmission of local cases, and the control effect with resumption of work and personnel turnover was very obvious in the two cities. These characteristics provide a suitable example for other countries and cities to better understand the effectiveness of control measures to address the possible long-term existence of COVID-19.