Algarve Situation Report, Saturday March 6^th 2021.
Sports
Formula 1 returns to Portugal in May
On Friday, the organization confirmed the plan to stage the Portuguese Formula 1 Grand Prix, in Portimão, on May 2nd.
The vacancy that was open in the official calendar of the Formula 1 World Championship is filled. From April 30th to May 2nd, the “fireballs” of the main track racing event will accelerate at the Portimão race track, in the Algarve.
The information was released on the social networks of the organization of the Formula 1 race and confirmed in a statement sent to the newsrooms, this Thursday morning.
“We are very excited to announce that Formula 1 will be racing again in Portimão, after the huge success of the race last year. We want to thank the promoter and the Portuguese Government for their hard work and dedication to the return of the race to Portugal, “said president and executive director of Formula 1 Stefano Domenicali, in a statement.
“We hope to be able to receive spectators in Portimão safely again this year and we are working with the promoter on the details of this plan,” added Domenicali.
The Formula 1 returned to Portugal in October 2020, the Algarve International Circuit, after 24 years of absence from the World Cup, following the reorganization of the schedule due to the pandemic Covid-19. “We were pleased to receive 27,000 fans during the Grand Prix weekend last season who were able to enjoy the great moments of action on the track,” adds the statement.
Autódromo Internacional do Algarve (AIA) expects a decision “on the presence of spectators in the coming weeks”, it is also read in the same statement.

In February Algarve hotels recorded a drop of 93.7%.
According to data from the Association of Hotels and Tourist Enterprises of the Algarve – AHETA, in relation to 2020, the month of February 2021 presented an average global occupancy rate of 2.9%, 93.7% below the value registered in the previous year.
According to the same source, the markets that contributed most to the decline were British (-98.0%) followed by German (-97.2%) and Dutch (-94.9%).
Despite having presented the lowest year-on-year decline, the national market declined -71.6%
Sales volume also decreased by -94.5% compared to the same month of the previous year.
The association also registers that, in accumulated values ​​of the last twelve months, the bed occupancy registered an average decrease of -60.5% and the volume of sales a decrease of -66.2%.

Covid-19: Algarve opens 25 beds for intensive rehabilitation of SNS patients.
The Algarve has since today (Friday) had 25 beds for the intensive rehabilitation of patients who were affected by their functions following the Covid-19 pandemic, the chairman of the board of directors of the Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Algarve (CHUA) told Lusa.
The beds, installed at the Center for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (CMFR) do Sul, in São Brás de Alportel, integrated in CHUA, will be able to receive patients with Covid-19 who were subjected to intubation and who were referred by the National Health Service for hospitalization. Health (SNS).
Speaking to Lusa, Ana Castro, said that the measure is “unique at national level” and that its objective is to allow patients who have been affected by the disease as a result of the disease to be able to “return to their normal life” as soon as possible, through a rehabilitation that brings together different therapies.
“We, at CMFR, already had a multidisciplinary team that did an intensive rehabilitation of patients who needed it and we thought that it would be a need to rehabilitate Covid patients who were in Intensive Care Units [UCI] and lost capacities”, he said.
Patients referred to the center in São Brás de Alportel will undergo a multidisciplinary program of “six hours a day” that will help them recover “both motor skills and some skills in terms of breathing, speech, swallowing, because of having been incubated”, he exemplified.
The chairman of the CHUA board of directors – which includes the hospitals in Faro, Portimão and Lagos and the CMFR – stressed that “this program is different from the others” and “unique at national level”, revealing that “a patient is already in hospital ” and another that went to the outpatient phase.

Southern Rehabilitation Medicine Centre resumes operation.
The Southern Rehabilitation Medicine Centre (CMR SUL), in São Brás de Alportel resumes its full operation with the total reopening of the number of beds in hospital.
An achievement defended by Vítor Guerreiro, President of the City Council, since 2014 with successive governments, achieved on Wednesday, March 3, with the beginning of a new rehabilitation program for post-Covid-19 patients.
This is an innovative service in the area of ​​rehabilitation, under the coordination of the CMR Sul team, which aims to provide an adequate response to complex clinical conditions of Covid-19 patients, subject to invasive mechanical ventilation and who need specific rehabilitation programs, more intensive, and with a multidisciplinary approach.
This new investment in the health of the Portuguese, allowed the reopening of another 25 beds and the hiring of specialized personnel, returning the full functioning to the Southern Medical and Physical Rehabilitation Center.