Azores Situation Report Wednesday 18th August 2021
From our colleague in the Azores
Covid -19
Since the last Situation Report a week ago on the 11th of August there have been 260 new cases of Covid-19 registered and 354 recoveries.
Another death has been registered in São Miguel, an 87-year-old woman who was admitted to the Hospital do Divino Espírito Santo. She was resident in the parish of Remedios, municipality of Ponta Delgada.
The archipelago currently registers 456 positive active cases: 386 on the island of São Miguel, 28 on the island of Terceira, 17 on the island of São Jorge, 10 on the island of Faial, seven on the island of Santa Maria, six on the island of Graciosa and two on the island of Pico.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 8,390 cases of COVID-19 have been positively positive in the Azores and 7,737 people recovered from the disease. There were 39 deaths, 89 people who left the archipelago and 69 with history of previous cure. To date, 666,197 tests have been carried out for SARS-CoV-2 virus which causes COVID-19 disease.
Nearly two thirds of the region’s population have been vaccinated with two doses or a complete single dose of a vaccine. From 31st of December 2020 to 16th of August, 167,580 people have been vaccinated in the Azores with the first dose (67.9 per cent) and 152,369 with complete vaccination (64.4 per cent), under the Regional Vaccination Plan.
New Doctors
The Regional Government of the Azores is hiring of 24 general and family medicine doctors for the Region, eight for São Miguel, six for Terceira, five for São Jorge, two for Santa Maria, two for Pico and one for Graciosa .
The Regional Secretary for Health and Sports, Clélio Meneses, said that it is “before the implementation of the purposes of this Government in order to provide the Health Units of the Region with doctors that allow for a closer and more effective response” to the populations.
“We were faced with major response problems at this level on several islands and in some locations, particularly, so we have to make a great effort to recover the Regional Health Service from these difficulties that, unfortunately, have affected the Azorean people”.
New ship for Corvo
The island of Corvo has received, for the first time, the ship “Thor Assister”, under the contract for the regular maritime transport service of goods between Faial-Corvo-Flores-Faial.
The Regional Secretariat for Transport, Tourism and Energy clarifies that, during the past weekend, the dredging works of the Porto da Casa were completed, in order to guarantee the necessary conditions for this new operation.
This operation will allow for greater regularity and reliability in the supply of Flores and Corvo, allowing the arrival of different types of essential and non-essential goods, and minimizing constraints that have persisted for several years.
Despite the relevance of the moment and the expectations placed on the entire operation, the transport authority in the Region will remain permanently committed to promoting social and territorial cohesion in the Autonomous Region of the Azores.