In Portugal, and especially in the capital Lisbon, the number of new cases of coronavirus has been rising for a month. However, President Marcelo Rebelo de Souza angrily rejected today the possibility for the country to reintroduce the restrictions imposed in the winter, AFP reported, quoted by BTA. “We will not back down. The question is not whether we can or should, this will not happen. Not with my participation,” said the center-right president, who has no executive powers but has influenced the decisions of Prime Minister Antonio Costa’s socialist government.
“The justification for some sanitary preventive measures is first of all the number of deaths. Then – to avoid unbearable pressure on the national health system,” said De Souza. He highlighted the success of the vaccination campaign, which managed to reduce the number of deaths and the number of hospitalized.
In Portugal, with a population of about 10 million, nearly 4 million people (39 percent of the population) had already received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine last Sunday, and 2.3 million had been fully vaccinated (23 percent).
According to health authorities, there are currently 325 hospitalized people with covid in the country – a maximum of April, but far less than the 6,900 patients in early February. Among European countries, Portugal reported this week the largest increase in new cases compared to the previous one – 23 percent.
The gradual lifting of restrictions, which began in March, entered a new phase last week in much of the country, but not in Lisbon, where more than half of the 700 new cases of coronavirus reported in the last 24 hours.
–
