Algarve Situation Report Wednesday 18th November 2020
GNR Closes down three illegal parties in the Algarve
GNR was forced to end an illegal wedding and birthday parties in Albufeira and Faro this weekend. The events had about 300 people.
According to GNR, in Albufeira 150 people were dressed for a wedding and 60 others in a restaurant, who were also celebrating a wedding, while in Faro the authorities closed a birthday party with 100 people, reads the statement.
GNR revealed that, in one of the parties, which took place in Albufeira, “several gatherings of people dressed for a ceremony were detected in a wedding party that was taking place in a hotel. This celebration had the presence of about 150 people”, according to Lusa News Agency.
Also in Albufeira, GNR caught 60 people in a restaurant, who were also celebrating a wedding as well. In this case, the authorities gave an “indication of closure to the establishment for having exceeded the permitted capacity” explained the Faro Territorial Command of the security force.
“In the third situation, in Faro, GNR went to a birthday party after reports of loud music in the early evening. There were 100 people in the space, the event having ceased and the participants demobilised without offering any resistance”, added the same source.
Two administrative infraction notices were raised in breach of the guidelines of the DGS and the resolution of the Council of Ministers, which sets a limit of 50 people in a marriage. The owners of the spaces are subject to fines ranging from 1,000 to 5,000 euros.
Tests carried out on the employees of the homes in the municipality of Loulé are negative
All the employees and collaborators of the nursing homes in the municipality of Loulé who carried out tests on the Covid-19 during this last month tested negative, informed the Louletana municipality today.
The initiative of complementarity with the Government, which through the Ministry of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security is carrying out tests on the employees of all institutions with 50 or more users, the municipality 
of Loulé allocated a subsidy of 38 thousand euros to the other institutions to also carry out, in the same way, this screening.
According to a statement from the municipality, 80 tests have already been carried out, but a total of 306 employees from 11 institutions will participate in this initiative. This process will take place over the next 3 months, a quarter of employees will be tested weekly, thus ensuring a monthly sample of the epidemiological reality in each nursing home.
All tests are taking place in the Drive-Thru of Parque das Cidades and carried out by the Algarve Biomedical Center (ABC), with the operational part being provided by the institutions themselves.
The council of Loulé, also advises, that the employees and collaborators of the homes of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Loulé, Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Boliqueime and the Social and Cultural Association of Tôr, the IPSS that have a higher number of users and, as such, are all part of the list of institutions where testing is being supported by the central government, tested negative for Covid-19.
Covid-19: Food support increases in the Algarve and not just for those who lost their jobs
Requests for food support have increased in the Algarve and Refood in Faro is no longer coming only from those who lost their jobs, but the structure is having to refuse support due to lack of storage capacity.
Every day during the afternoon, several families are waiting for the delivery of food at the door of the institution’s logistics base, installed in an old house in the city centre and given to Refood by a family from Faro.
Deliveries are made in two shifts and it is in the second that Lusa’s report finds more than a dozen families, many accompanied by their children, such as Marta (fictitious name), who was forced to ask for support after her ex-companion lost his employment and “stop paying the alimony”.
She realized that she “would have to lose her shame” and ask for help, having decided to resort to this voluntary movement that collects and distributes surplus meals from restaurants, but also made by volunteers, and food baskets.
“There is shame, because I work and when working, we don’t think that we will need help and that we can support ourselves and our children. There shouldn’t be, because you are not stealing, but there is” she confesses.
After analysing her situation, she explained that she was at the limit of economic need and, therefore, she would be entitled to support three times a week. However, she opted for “two” because she considers it “enough” and, therefore, “always remains for others”.
Marta keeps her job and the same income, but, without the financial contribution of her ex-partner, she had to start looking for “products that were at the limit of validity” to feed her two teenage children.
At the moment, there are about 200 volunteers distributed over the seven days of the week between collection, packaging and delivery, but Paula regrets having to “refuse any help that comes from the community” due to lack of storage capacity.
Support requests stabilized in August and September, but since the beginning of October new requests continue to arrive: they even receive “five to six” requests daily, says Paula Matias.
Covid-19: Albufeira changes dates and times of shows to comply with more restrictive measures
After having entered the list of new municipalities with a high risk of contamination by Covid-19, the municipality of Albufeira was forced to change times and days of shows taking place in the Municipal Auditorium, in order to respond to the most restrictive measures currently in force, namely with regard to curfew.
Thus, according to the municipality, the ACTA show, “Ardente – Memorial for Pedro and Inês”, scheduled for next Friday, will take place half an hour earlier than originally planned, while the “Cante Alentejano” Workshop and the concert of Celina da Piedade were brought forward to November 26th, at 6 pm and 9 pm, respectively.
The Albufeira Chamber explains that the ACTA show, “will lean towards a mythic approach, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to a reflection on love and death, with a predominance of images, mixing it with music and singing “.
Tickets cost € 5.00 and are on sale at the Municipal Gallery of Albufeira, on weekdays from 10 am to 12:30 pm and from 1:30 pm to 5 pm, or at the Municipal Auditorium, on the same day of the show from 7:30 pm to 8:45 pm.
Algarve Report 14th of November
ARS Covid-19 Statistics,
According the Regional Health Authority repot to 23.59 hrs 12th November the Covid-19 statistics for the Algarve are as follows:
- Active cases – 1245
- Currently In hospital: 48; In ICU- 9
- Deaths to date: 39
- Confirmed cases to date: 3803
- Recovered 2519 – Recovery rate 88.2%
Covid-19: Algarve is hampered by the way population is counted – AMAL
The president of the Algarve Intermunicipal Community (AMAL) today considered that the region is hampered by the population count for the definition of municipalities with high risk of contagion by covid-19, as not all resident foreigners are included.
According to António Pina, the Algarve “cannot continue to be seen” as a region with a population of 450 thousand inhabitants, but with 600 thousand inhabitants, “because that is what actually exists”, alluding to the foreign citizens that inhabit in the Algarve but are not registered as residents.
“This leads us to believe that if it were considered [the population count] as we propose, many of the municipalities that appear on this list today would not be”, assured the president of AMAL, referring to the list of municipalities at high risk of contagion, which now covers half of the municipalities in the Algarve.
At a press conference held at the District Civil Protection Centre, in Loulé, the president of AMAL said that he will “present and ask the Directorate-General for Health and the Government to have a weighting factor in relation to the Algarve to be able to incorporate it into the population’s denominator – another number”.
Reassessed every 15 days by the Government, the list of municipalities with a high risk of transmission of covid-19 is defined according to the general criterion of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) of “more than 240 cases per 100 thousand inhabitants in the last 14 days “.
In addition to the foreign resident population that is not officially accounted for, the delegate of Health of the Algarve considered that the Algarve should be seen as “a whole” and if it were, the region would not yet reach 240 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Comment
It came as a surprise that according to this statement that there are 150,000 non-registered foreign inhabitants in the Algarve as this seems very high amounting to 33% of the entire registered population. The President of AMAL did not provide the source of the 600,000 figure.
Outbreak of Cov-19 detected at a campsite in Alvor
The most recent covid-19 outbreak in the Algarve was detected at the Alvor campsite in Portimão, involving a hundred people, although only 13 positive cases have already been identified, said the regional health delegate today.
At the fortnightly press conference of the District Civil Protection Commission of the Algarve, Ana Cristina Guerreiro stressed that the number of cases may increase, with tests still underway, indicating that the people involved in the outbreak are “mostly foreigners”.
In addition to this, the outbreaks that most concern the authorities, according to the regional delegate, are related to football clubs, especially at the under-23 level, and to evangelical religious groups in Faro, Olhão and Portimão. Altogether, there are 34 cases identified in religious groups and 31 in football clubs in Almancil (Loulé) – where the largest number of cases are concentrated -, Faro and Olhão, with infections registered among the younger strata.
The cases related to religious groups are due to the fact that people are “in a closed space, possibly with greater proximity than they should and where they sing and speak loudly”, he said, noting that singing “is a risky activity”.
There are still 50 schools with scattered cases, in a total of 86, although there has not yet been an outbreak in the school environment, he stressed, adding that they are not the places with the highest rate of transmission. In the total of schools in the Algarve, the majority of those infected (72) are students, 14 of whom are employees, including assistants and teachers.
Covid-19: Hotel in Portimão will welcome patients without the need for hospitalization
A 550-room hotel in Portimão will start operating “in the next few days” as a back-up support structure (EAR) to welcome people with covid-19 without the need for hospitalization and users of homes, was announced today.
The structure, which is already being used by people with negative test results but who still cannot go home, will now have a “different qualification”, and will also welcome patients whose tests are still positive, said the regional combat coordinator to the pandemic, Jorge Botelho.
The equipment is in the installation phase and should start operating “in the next few days”, estimated the Secretary of State for Decentralization and Local Administration, during the fortnightly press conference of the District Civil Protection Committee of the Algarve.
“In the coming months, this will be the residential back-up structure for covid patients who no longer need hospital care, but who are neither able to go home nor to go to ERPI [residential structures for elderly people] because they have no criteria , that is, they are still positive ”, he stressed.
The new structure, created under a diploma that provides for the installation of a network of back-up support structures throughout the country, will help to alleviate the burden at the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve (CHUA), in the sense of trying to “prevent the scheduled activity may be affected ”.
According to Jorge Botelho, “those people who, being in the hospital and being positive – with a lack of vacancies and without criteria to be in more intensive care – can also be moved by the hospital to this structure”.
“Surprise and indignation” – Câmara de Tavira for inclusion in the list of risky municipalities
The Mayor of Tavira considers it an “injustice” to be included in the list of risky municipalities , as this results from the attribution to her municipality, by the General Health Directorate, of “60 new cases” that are not in the accounts of the authorities of local and regional health.
In a note published on the municipality’s Facebook page, Ana Paula Martins guarantees that “it was with surprise and indignation that the municipality received this information, since it came to contradict the numbers that have been communicated to us by the local and regional health authorities (which are coincident) and that point out that, in the period considered by the Government (between 28/10 and 10/11), the municipality of Tavira has an accumulation of 54 new cases and, consequently, with 220 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. It would therefore be below the value to be considered in the list referred to above ».
However, “and we do not know on the basis of what data, as they are not in agreement with those of the local and regional health authorities, DGS attributes, during the period in question, 60 new cases to Tavira”, adds the mayor.
Algarve Report Wednesday 11th November 2020
Algarve Biomedical Centre has already performed 50 thousand diagnostic tests for Covid-19
The Algarve Biomedical Centre (ABC) is currently carrying out between 500 and 600 diagnostic tests for Covid-19 per day, especially in homes in the Algarve, Alentejo and Setúbal, but also in response to requests 
from the Local Health Unit of Baixo Alentejo, he said in a statement.
Since April, ABC has performed more than 50,000 tests, including homes, day care centres, schools and football clubs in the Algarve.
It was also responsible for the tests carried out on the Portugal Masters 2020 and on events held at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve. In addition, it has responded to outbreaks in different municipalities in the Algarve and the Alentejo and has tested citizen stores across the country, whenever a positive case is identified, under a protocol with the Agency for Administrative Modernization, the same statement needs.
Turismo de Portugal is in the Algarve supporting innovative ideas in sustainable tourism
The “Green Up” program aims to support students and recent graduates in tourism to create projects that focus on sustainability and environmental economics. The initiative goes through the Hotel and Tourism School of Vila Real de Santo António, Faro and Portimão.
Preparing entrepreneurs with know how to take advantage of tourist demand and direct it towards sustainability is the objective of “Green Up”, the tourism ideation program promoted by Creative Territories and Turismo de Portugal and aimed at hotel and tourism schools from all over the world. The valorisation of endogenous products and services, the sustainability of the territories and the promotion of the circular economy are the pillars of the program, points out a statement from Territorios Criativos, a consulting and support company for entrepreneurship that organizes the “Green Up”.
The “Green Up” passed today, through Vila Real de Santo António and Faro and tomorrow, it will be in Portimão at 3 pm, continuing the “roadshow” through 9 more schools of hospitality and tourism to select 70 entrepreneurs. For the teams that are formed, a two-day Bootcamp will follow in Alvaiázere, in the district of Leiria, between 10th and 11th December, consisting of two intensive days of mentoring and training.
Aljezur joins the “Local SNS Vaccination” program
In a statement, the municipality of Aljezur signed an agreement with Associação Dignitude, under the “Local SNS Vaccination” program to, in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, expand the means and resources available for protection, specifically vaccination against seasonal flu, of residents aged 65 and over.
The same statement advances that, one of the objectives of the program is to protect the most vulnerable, through vaccination against seasonal flu, extended to community pharmacies, which in the municipality of 
Aljezur, are the three pharmacies located in the parishes of Aljezur, Rogil and Odeceixe, who joined the project, he stressed.
This protocol, which has been adopted by several municipalities, which Aljezur joined, also seeks to avoid the concentration of people in health centres and extensions, warns the same source.
According to this protocol, the 3 existing community pharmacies will be able to administer 150 vaccines (50 in each pharmacy), free of charge for the citizen, as in the health and health extension centres, since “the municipality participates in the price administration of vaccines’.
According to the council, 150 people from the municipality in this age group and users of the NHS, will be able to receive the vaccine in any of the community pharmacies, avoiding visits and concentration in local health units.
Missing 84 year old person found after missing overnight
The GNR of São Bartolomeu de Messines located yesterday, Monday, November 9th, an elderly man of 84 years who had been absent since the previous day from his residence at Carrasqueira, municipality of São 
Bartolomeu de Messines.
The GNR began searching for the man “after a family member reported his disappearance on 8th November, Sunday, at around 5pm, stating that he had been absent at since 9am from his residence””.
At about 3:00 am on November 9th, they man was located by the military in the Barranco Longo site, in the parish of Silves, about four kilometres from his home, visibly disoriented and with principles of hypothermia, and medical assistance was immediately activated via 112.
The man was transported to the Hospital do Barlavento Algarvio, in Portimão, for observation, and was discharged on the same day.