Portugal Situation Report Wednesday 12th January 2022

Introduction

Good morning – Over the last 10 days we have seen large daily increases in new Covid-19 cases as well as an increase in hospitalisations – the latter however is still 60% lower for the same time last year. As far as the numbers in ICU are concerned, they remain around 150 far below the 567 recorded on the same day last year. There are signs of an increase in the number of deaths, but last week these were still 81% lower for the same week last year. Welcome news yesterday was that there some 43,000 recoveries – a record. We await developments especially whether the transmission rate continues to decrease, and of course the incidence rate which last Monday was 3204.4 for Portugal.

However, I start today with a plea from the hospital services. If you think you have Covid-19 or if you have had a positive self-test, do not, under any circumstances, go to the emergency rooms of hospitals in the Algarve, the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve said yesterday.

This is because, there has been great pressure from “completely asymptomatic” patients with Covid-19, which makes it difficult to provide assistance to those who really need urgent treatment.

Although this plea is from one particular hospital, the same situation applies in other hospitals throughout the country. The correct action in these circumstances is to call the SNS 24 help line. It may take some time to get through, but hospitals are under considerable pressure at present and they need their resources to deal with real emergencies.

Yesterday in Novas, Santarém, the Centro Hospitalar do Médio Tejo (CHMT) suspended from immediate effect visits to patients admitted to hospitals in Abrantes, Tomar and Torres Novas, as a temporary and preventive measure in view of epidemiological developments of covid-19. In a statement, the CHMT stated it was a “preventive measure that aims to further safeguard the safety of sick people who are hospitalized in hospitals, as well as health professionals”. A further example of the pressure on hospitals.

On a different topic, yesterday the tax authority (AT) issued an alert that false emails in the name of the authority are being sent to some taxpayers. These contain an invitation for taxpayers to send “their request for tax refunds so that” so they can “process it as soon as possible”, followed by a malicious ‘link’ where the taxpayer is asked to click. This type of phishing attempt is not unusual this time of the year and are the work of fraudsters trying to obtain financial information such as bank details. Simply delete and do not reply or click on any links.

Positive news is that the European Union (EU) is preparing a proposal that aims to tighten the fight against child sexual abuse content circulating on the internet. The new legislation is expected to be presented in the coming months. According to the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, with the new regulation, tech giants would have a legal obligation to “identify, report and remove this content”.

Currently, a provisional law allows technology companies to choose whether or not to pursue reports of content related to child sexual abuse. According to Euronews, the voluntary nature of this regulation means that for six months of 2021 companies stopped reporting these complaints for fear of non-compliance with the new European privacy regulation, introduced at the end of 2020. Let us hope that this new regulation is put in place as soon as possible.

On a similar theme, following a decision by the Portuguese Episcopal Conference in November 2021, an Independent Commission has been established to carry out a study on Child abuse (from 0 to 18 years of age) within the Portuguese Catholic Church. Anyone who has suffered this type of situation can and should give their testimony, relying on the team’s professional secrecy and the guarantee of their anonymity.

The commission yesterday set up a website for this purpose asking: “Were you a victim of sexual abuse during your childhood and adolescence (up to the age of 18), practiced by members of the Portuguese Catholic Church or people who work for it?” If so those victims can provide testimony directly to the commission. If you need to contact them or require further information the website is at https://darvozaosilencio.org/   About 50 testimonies have already been validated through an online survey or completed in a phone call”, as at 1830 hrs yesterday.

A reminder that self-scheduling for those age 45 and over for the booster vaccination is now available through the DGS portal.

The Self-scheduling for those age 30 and over, if you were previously given the Janssen /J&J vaccine for the booster vaccination is also available through the DGS portal. There is likely to be a large demand in these age groups so we suggest people to be patient if the system is overloaded.

The process is the same on this link here https://covid19.min-saude.pt/pedido-de-agendamento/

Also a reminder where you can find the current covid 19 measures in place as a result of the last Resolution of the Council of Ministers published 7th January. Our page on the website with these measure is here. Please check here first of all, before asking us questions on our Facebook page as it helps in reducing the large number of enquiries we are receiving.

https://www.safecommunitiesportugal.com/major-incidents/all-risk-municipalities/

With that have a good day and stay Safe.

 

Headlines

Covid-19: Omicron could infect 50% of the European population in the coming weeks

The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that more than 50% of Europe’s population will have Covid-19 in the next six to eight weeks. The projection was advanced by Hans Kluge, the regional director of WHO Europe during a press conference this Tuesday.

Hans Kluge recalled that the unvaccinated are six times more likely to need hospitalization than the vaccinated. The specialist noted, however, that the most recent data show that the effectiveness of the vaccine drops after the second dose, but is recovered by the third dose.

Asked about the inequity of vaccination between continents, the specialist considered that there is no contradiction in Europe (which is advancing with reinforcements while in other continents the first dose has not yet reached the majority of the population). Hans Kluge believes that the approach to this issue should not be “one or the other”, but rather promote vaccination on all fronts.

“As long as there is vaccine inequity, the pandemic will not end,” he said. “No country is going to strengthen itself [to the point of exiting] out of the pandemic alone.” The regional director acknowledged, however, that although Europe has led the donation of vaccines to the most impoverished regions, it must increase this effort.

According to the most recent data, Europe reported in the first week of 2022 more than seven million new cases, “more than doubling” the number in two weeks. “Mortality rates remain stable and remain high in countries with many cases and low vaccination coverage.” The Omicron variant has been detected in 50 countries in Europe and Central Asia and is becoming the dominant variant and expanding into the Balkans.

Despite tending to present milder symptoms, Hans Kluge once again underlined that Omicron should not be “underestimated” and that it is highly contagious due to its mutations, and can affect even recovered and vaccinated people. “Infection control remains very important.”

Covid-19 DGS Report 11th January 2022

Confirmed: 1.693.398 (+ 33,340 / + 2.01 %)

Admitted: 1.564 (-24 /-1.51 %)

Admitted to ICU: 153 (-8 /-4.97 %)

Deaths: 19.161 (+ 28 / + 0.15 %)

Recovered: 1.404.786 (+ 43,513 / + 3.20 %)

Active cases: 269,451 (-10,201 /-3.39%)

TRENDS

New cases increase compared to yesterday to over 30,000 – above last week’s daily average

A moderate decrease in hospital admissions after yesterday very large increase

Deaths higher than yesterday and higher than last week’s daily average. Highest daily number since 5th March 2021

Record number of recoveries in a single day

A decrease of those in ICU compared with an increase yesterday and a decrease the day before

COMPARISON 2021

On this same day last year 122 deaths were recorded, and 3983 were in hospital (+213 compared to the previous day and 567 in ICU.

Health

Covid-19. Suspected adverse reaction in 0.1% of the 19.6 million doses administered in the country

In more than 19.6 million doses of the vaccine against covid-19 administered in Portugal, suspected adverse reactions were reported in 0.1% of these inoculations, an average of one complaint per thousand vaccines. There were about 21,500 cases registered by the end of 2021, according to Infarmed.

Most adverse reactions (10,993) are related to the Pfizer/BioNtech (Comirnaty) vaccine, followed by AstraZeneca (Vaxzevria), with 6166 reports, Moderna (Spikevax), with 2440, and Janssen, with 1878 cases.

Infarmed stresses, however, that these data “do not allow the comparison of safety profiles between vaccines”, since they were used in different population subgroups (age, gender, health profile, among others) and “in epidemiological periods and distinct contexts”.

Infarmed also emphasizes that, in the case of the 116 notifications of deaths in the elderly, the cause-effect relationship was not demonstrated. “The cases of death occurred in a group of individuals with a median age of 77 years and do not necessarily presuppose the existence of a causal relationship between each death and the vaccine administered, also taking place within the normal patterns of morbidity and mortality of the Portuguese population”.

The report also adds that, of the cases of adverse reactions classified as serious, “about 85% concern situations of temporary incapacity (including absenteeism from work)”.

Covid-19: Hospitals in the Middle Tagus suspend visits to hospitalized patients

Torres Novas, Santarém, January 11, 2022 (Lusa) – The Centro Hospitalar do Médio Tejo (CHMT) suspended from today visits to patients admitted to hospitals in Abrantes, Tomar and Torres Novas, as a temporary and preventive measure in view of epidemiological developments of covid-19.

In a statement, the CHMT administration states that the three CHMT hospital units will “temporarily suspend hospital visits, as of today”, a “preventive measure that aims to further safeguard the safety of sick people who are hospitalized in hospitals”. CHMT hospitals, as well as health professionals” of the institution.

“Given the epidemiological evolution of the country and the municipalities served by the CHMT, as well as taking into account the alerts that are launched today by the WHO – World Health Organization – about the foreseeable evolution of the pandemic in Europe, the Board of Directors of the CHMT considered it essential the temporary suspension of the possibility of visits”, adds the hospital institution based in Torres Novas, in the district of Santarém.

The decision, which enters into force today, “will be reassessed periodically and according to the evolution of the epidemiological situation”, with the CHMT asking for “understanding and collaboration” from users and their families.

Government predicts 380,000 confined in legislative elections, a total similar to that of presidential elections 

The Government expects that in the January legislative elections there will be a number of confined citizens similar to that of the last presidential elections, around 380,000, the Minister of Internal Administration advanced this Monday.

“We are convinced, at the moment, that we will probably have, at the time of the elections, more or less the same level of people confined that we had in the last presidential elections, in which there were 383,346 confined citizens”, said Francica Van Dunem, in statements to the journalists at the ministry’s premises in Lisbon.

These data were provided by the government official, after meeting with the parties with parliamentary seats on the conditions for voting in the early parliamentary elections on January 30th.

“Regarding this total, there was a very small percentage of people who requested the vote at home, around 4%, that gives a number in the order of seven thousand”, he said.

Van Dunem began by saying that “between 2 and 8 January the average number of people confined was 428,644”, but that the new rules defined by the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) – the reduction of the period of isolation and the review of the risk contact concept – “in principle, they will tend to reduce by 30% the weight of people confined because they are infected, and by around 19% the weight of people confined because they are risk contacts”.

The minister also said that the idea that the country would reach the peak of infections by the new Omicron variant “either last week or this week” came out of the Infarmed meeting.

“Even admitting that this is not the case, that there will be some more time, we will probably already be in the downward phase by the time of the elections. The experience gathered from other countries that had this variant before us points to the fact that an exponential rise, reaching the peak, is also followed by an abrupt fall”, he explained. 

More than 2000 nurses asked to leave Portugal since the beginning of the pandemic

In the last year alone [2021], the total number of nurses who expressed an intention to emigrate corresponds to about a third of the new nurses trained annually by Portuguese schools”, says the OE in a statement. The Order of Nurses received 2413 requests for declarations for emigration purposes.

According to the data, 1230 requests were made in 2020 and 913 in 2021, especially in the second half of the last year, “a time when thousands of nurses leave schools for the market”, says the OE. “Thus, while until June [2021] there were 277 requests for the issuance of declarations, between June and December that number rose to 636”, states the OE.

“European countries, which in the last two years have carried out very aggressive recruitment campaigns, to which the OE has warned, continue to be chosen by Portuguese nurses, especially Switzerland, but the United Arab Emirates also receive, from year to year, year, more and more Portuguese professionals”, the order adds.

After Switzerland, Spain and the United Kingdom, despite Brexit, were the main destinations chosen by Portuguese nurses in 2021. 

Portugal has already vaccinated more than 300,000 children against COVID-19

More than 300,000 children aged between 5 and 11 have already started vaccination against COVID-19 in Portugal.

Considering that there are almost 626 thousand users in this age group, approximately 48% of children aged between 5 and 11 have already been vaccinated. It is noteworthy, however, that to date, about 45,000 children are not eligible for vaccination, as they contracted the disease in the last 90 days.

Children who were not vaccinated on these days will have the opportunity to schedule vaccination for the next periods dedicated to paediatric vaccination, starting on February 5th.

The number of new cases of COVID-19 in children has been increasing, so the Directorate-General for Health recommends vaccinating children in this age group.

Other news

Independent Commission for the study of Sexual abuses against children in the Portuguese Catholic Church

Pedro Strecht talks about “mission” and undertakes to analyse “everything that could have happened”, from 1950 until now, in terms of abuse committed against children. The Commission says that there is a “clear and unequivocal position” on the part of the Church for the whole truth to be ascertained and it will have access to ecclesiastical archives and all entities responsible for the protection of minors.

From 10 am on Tuesday, a website, a telephone line and all forms of mail (electronic or postal) will be available to collect reports of sexual abuse committed by members of the Catholic Church or its collaborators. The field of analysis is gigantic: the cases can have occurred from 1950 to the present, the reports can be made by people of any age and they can also involve both priests and lay people, as long as they are linked to organizations under the responsibility of the Church. The only condition is that the testimonies involve minors, between the ages of 0 and 18, who have been victims of any form of abuse.

The motto is “give a voice to silence” and that is the name of the website (https://darvozaosilencio.org ) which, from now on, will act as a reception point for all complaints. Or rather, “they are not denunciations, but testimonies”, says sociologist Ana Mendes Almeida, who is part of the commission and who will be responsible for the inquiry that will lead to the national study on the situation of sexual abuse practiced by the Church in Portugal. The invitation was made by the Portuguese Episcopal Conference (CEP) and, in line with the guidelines given by Pope Francis, Pedro Strecht, the child psychiatrist who presides over the commission really wants to “analyse everything that may have happened in Portugal” in this matter.

With “total autonomy and total trust” on the part of the Portuguese bishops, Pedro Strecht dispels the idea that there is resistance on the part of the Church to investigate one of the darkest chapters in its recent history.

Military numbers fall again in 2021

The number of military personnel in the Armed Forces (FAA) fell again in 2021, according to information obtained by the DN. Despite being still provisional, the data indicate that last year there were 23,347 soldiers in the FAA, 401 less than in 2020.

The evolution recorded by the Branches (Army, Air Force and Navy) shows that, since 2016, there has been an 8% decrease in the number of personnel, with emphasis on the enlisted personnel who fell by about 20% and the sergeants 1.1%, while the officers increased by 9% (plus 515).

At the moment the Portuguese Armed Forces have 5653 officers for 9820 enlisted men – each officer does not have two enlisted men to command. If we add the sergeants to the officers, this number (13,527) is much higher than the 9,820 soldiers in 2021.

“The structure level of an Armed Forces is one officer for every 30 soldiers and one sergeant for every 10 soldiers. Anything less than that is a huge waste. There shouldn’t be any FAA in the world with the approximate framing level. of Portuguese”, underlines Major General Carlos Chaves , secretary general of the recently created Movimento de Militares pela Verdade (MMV) and former advisor for Defence and Security to former Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.

But the drop in the number of soldiers is even more significant if we go back to 2012, when, according to a balance sheet made by the Ministry of Defence, to which the DN also had access, there were 38,000 soldiers in the Armed Forces. This balance, whose values ​​have been rounded, includes not only the permanent staff and contracted personnel, but also the military in the reserve, hence the numbers do not coincide with those referred to by the Branches.

 

 

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