Algarve Situation Report Wednesday 19th May 2021
AHP receives confirmation from the “Task Force” on strengthening vaccination in the Algarve.
Following the proposal submitted to the “Task Force” responsible for the Vaccination Plan against Covid-19 with the request for priority vaccination of the population of the Algarve, the Association of Hotelaria de Portugal (AHP), said in a statement that it received confirmation of the intention to start strengthening vaccination in the Algarve region, accelerating the rate of vaccinated population.
“It is with great expectation that we received recognition for our proposal to speed up the vaccination of residents and tourism professionals in the Algarve region, the main national tourist destination. Add to its relevance at the moment when it is already possible to make tourist trips from some markets, among which, the British, are vital for tourism in the Algarve”, says Raul Martins, president of AHP.
The purpose of the AHP proposal, presented on May 13th, is to guarantee a quick resumption of tourism activity and maintenance of companies and jobs in a region very dependent on tourism activity.
“We are at a crucial stage for tourism, with the opening of airspace to some destinations and with the approach of summer, and it is important to transmit confidence both to the Portuguese population and to those who visit us. With the reinforcement of vaccination in the Algarve region, we will, for sure, ensure a greater competitiveness of the destination”, concludes Raul Martins.
AHP says that according to Eurostat data released in April, the Algarve was the Portuguese region that registered the highest unemployment rate in 2020, reaching 8.4%, followed by Madeira and the Lisbon Metropolitan Area. Also the Observatory of Inequalities, which recently published the study “Unemployment in 2020 – Impacts of the Pandemic, Mappings and Reflections”, indicates that the Algarve is the region of the country where the pandemic is having a disproportionate impact, largely explained by the fact the region is highly dependent on tourism, with particular emphasis on the municipality of Albufeira.
Algarve short film about Covid-19 selected for American festival.
‘Short film 19’, an experimental documentary produced by Paradoxon Produções, directed by Hernâni Duarte Maria 
and music by Projeto Sonda / Pedro Glória de Lagos, was selected for the Trapped Film Festival 2021 in the USA in the category of Covid documentary films.
According to the Algarve producer, the story portrays the confinement in Portugal in the first person, the first in March 2020, in a very personal and intimate view of the director, “who films himself and films what surrounds him, in a real scenario that seems more fiction, but it is real”.
According to the same source, the film has already been selected for several festivals, “but this is the festival of internationalization”.
Covid-19: Six agricultural workers were transferred to ZAP de Tavira.
Six agricultural workers with Covid-19 were today sent to the Population Support Zone (ZAP) in Tavira, which reopened to welcome them due to the lack of conditions for isolation in their homes, the Mayor said to Lusa.
“Six individuals were transferred to ZAP, from two different homes, and will stay there. The medical evaluation has already been carried out and, for now, everything is fine. Let’s see how the situation evolves now” said Ana Paula Martins, President of the municipality.
The Mayor justified the decision – taken today after a visit by the health authorities to the two private dwellings where the workers were staying – with the fact that “one of the houses has only one bathroom and there are no individual rooms to do the work”.
According to Ana Paula Martins, the objective is also “to ensure that [workers] do not leave” the places where they are in isolation, because “the security forces make periodic rounds, but they cannot be present at the places permanently”.
On Sunday, the Mayor had anticipated the possibility that the ZAP of Tavira’s fair and Exhibition Park could be reopened after seven cases of Covid-19 were detected among agricultural workers on Friday and another 12 on Saturday.
Speaking to Lusa, Ana Paula Martins had specified that the cases that could be housed in the ZAP were among the first seven, because the 12 infected detected on Saturday “live on the farm”, where they are going to do the isolation, since it was “verified that the necessary conditions ”exist for that purpose.