Algarve
Algarve Situation Report, Saturday 27^th March 2021.

Algarve has 73 more active cases of Covid-19 than a week ago.

The Algarve has 73 more active cases of Covid-19 than a week ago, now totalling 386, according to data released this Friday, March 26th, by the District Civil Protection Commission.

Over the past week, the Regional Health Authority recorded 233 new cases of the disease when, in the previous week, between 12th and 19th March, 106 new cases had been registered.

This rise in contagions in the last week is related to the appearance of outbreaks, particularly in the municipalities of Portimão and Albufeira, in civil construction companies, as the South Information has advanced.

These situations linked to civil construction “emerged, identified as outbreaks, in the second week of March”, but “new cases continue to appear”, as explained by the Regional Health Authority, on Tuesday, to our newspaper.

According to the data, until 23:59 this Thursday, Monchique was the only municipality in the Algarve with no active cases. However, the mayor Rui André revealed in a Facebook post that “after more than a month after the last Covid-19 case, we have again registered a case, according to information from the health authorities”.

The South Information also found that, after tests, two more infections have already been detected in this municipality.

Also Vila do Bispo, which, a week ago, had no active infections, now has 7 active cases.

On the other hand, Portimão (124) and Faro (66) continue to be the two municipalities with the most active infections, although, in the case of the Algarve capital, the number has decreased in the last week (-4).

Association of Hotels and Tourist Enterprises of the Algarve (AHETA) proposes the integration of hotel and restaurant workers in the groups to be vaccinated.
AHETA issued on Thursday, March 25th, a note stating that “the Algarve, like what happens in other competing tourist destinations, should consider hotel and restaurant workers as priorities in vaccination strategies against Covid-19”.
“The tourism economy is characterized by being an activity from people to people, forcing holiday consumers to go to the place where the services are produced. Therefore, the human factor plays, in this economic sector, a more important and decisive role than in other sectors, namely in all activities that make up the respective tourism value chain, with a special focus on accommodation and restaurant services”, explains the Association.
In this sense, “and considering that vaccination is, at present, the condition that most confidence can induce in the general population, especially with regard to obtaining the so-called group immunity”, AHETA defends that “the national health authorities and Regional authorities should consider vaccination of hotel and tourism professionals in the largest and most important Portuguese tourist region, as a priority. ”
The Association based in Albufeira argues that “the vaccination of professionals in the tourism sector is assumed, in the current economic and health context, as a competitive asset in the recovery phase, compared to other competing destinations, a period in which the competitive dispute it will be very pronounced”.
On the other hand, AHETA defends the proportional distribution of vaccines, since, in the national context, “the Algarve has been contemplated with a smaller number of units, compared to other regions of our country”.

Covid-19: Unemployment in the Algarve “worries” but is below 2020 figures – IEFP.
The Algarve regional delegate from the Institute of Employment and Professional Training (IEFP) today classified the increase in unemployment in the region as “worrying” but stressed that the February figures are below those recorded in the first confinement, in 2020.

In taking stock of the effects of a year of the Covid-19 pandemic on employment in the Algarve, Madalena Feu told Agência Lusa that the 74.4% year-on-year increase in unemployment recorded in February this year is still far from the figures for May, June and July last year, when there were year-on-year increases of 202.4%, 231.8% and 216.6%, respectively.
The IEFP regional delegate considered, therefore, that the impact registered in the first confinement, starting in March 2020, was “greater” than that registered in January and February this year, a month in which there was a total of 33,459 registered to the job search in regional employment services.
“As the Algarve is a region that has lived almost exclusively on tourism and all the activities associated with it, its main consequence was higher unemployment than in the rest of the country”, acknowledged Madalena Feu.
However, “if only the February figures are checked”, and “although they are quite high”, they still “would not be as high as they were last year”, he countered.
The IEFP delegate in the Algarve supported this position by comparing the 74.4% year-on-year increase registered in the last month, in full second confinement, with the months following the beginning of the first confinement, starting in March 2020, when they were reached “Growth, compared to the same period, in the order of 202.4% in May, 231.8% in June and 216.6% in July”.
“If 2020 was a first clash with the pandemic, today we can say that we are better prepared”, he justified, considering that the reorganization of services to adapt and respond in a pandemic time, as well as the importance of public measures to support employment and the economy, “Have contributed to controlling the numbers more effectively”.