Portugal Situation Report Wednesday 10^th February 2021

Introduction

We thank those who responded to the Facebook post by my colleague Mike Evans on Saturday, concerning the work of Safe Communities Portugal. It reached around 18,000 people. We thought this was timely given the very large increase in people following our page, from around 17,000 a year ago to almost 40,000 now. People often visit Facebook pages not knowing anything about who is responsible for the page, and whether or not it is a credible source of information. In our case it is an entry point to our website and all the information gathered there over the last 9 years.

Some respondents appeared surprised by the diversity of our work – this being amply demonstrated in a period of just 3 hours on Monday this week, when we posted six urgent posts in around an hour covering; a landslip blocking a railway line; a small earthquake epicentre close to Portimão; the latest daily Covid-19 statistics; the 14 day Covid-19 averages by municipality; DGS announcement of creation of an on-line vaccine simulator and the ANEPC bad weather warning to the public.

As a qualified Civil Protection Volunteer Organisation, our role is not just to publish news reports or (copy and paste, news reports) the role of the media, but using our knowledge and experience, to explain these and provide our own comments where we can – and of course answer your questions. Most of our posts require some form of research beforehand and are possibly the culmination of many hours of work.

In this respect, although everyone is immersed in Covid-19 matters, it is important to pay attention to safety matters concerning weather warnings because these can affect life and property. So when you see these, particularly the ANEPC notifications, this means there is a risk and the advice should be shared and followed.

On Sunday we reported the words of Virologist Pedro Simas, who said that Portugal is experiencing an abrupt reduction in the number of new contagions, resulting from confinement, which could put the country among one of the best in the world to control the third wave of the pandemic.

Certainly this appears to be the case. Covid-19 cases are showing a welcomed downward trend namely; recoveries 3^rd highest in one day since start of pandemic with six times new cases; new cases lowest since 28th December; number of active cases lowest since 15th January; those under surveillance lowest since 19th January and hospitalisations and ICU numbers decreasing – largest one day decrease in hospitalisations. Deaths on the other hand increased very slightly but second lowest since 18th January.

Also welcome is the fact that the estimated value for the average of the last five days analysed, between January 30th and February 3rd, is 0.82 for Rt (average number of people who each infected). It is a low value, which clearly indicates a reduction in incidence.

Yesterday the main focus was on the Infarmed meeting where government discussed with various experts the current situation concerning Covid-19 and various forecasts. At Safe Communities we followed this live and updated our Facebook page and site with a summary of the various briefings. Certainly there were some very interesting facts produced, with a clear indicator that the current level of confinement, with far less movement of people, is producing results, both in the reduction of cases and the pressure on the national health service (SNS). However, it is clear from what the Prime Minister said that there will be a need to prolong the general confinement currently in place.

Coupled with this yesterday was news that the first vaccination phase, which was due to end before March 31st, will be extended to April due to the “problem of vaccine availability”, announced the new co-ordinator for the vaccination plan against Covid-19.

This situation, explained Gouveia e Melo, who succeeded Francisco Ramos in office, is not a problem of administration, nor of the speed of administration, it is a logistical problem and a problem of the availability of vaccines upon arrival in Portugal and, therefore, of access to vaccines.

Yesterday, as part of the seventh renewal of the second State of Emergency, President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa started the hearings with the Political Parties with parliamentary representation, which took place by videoconference. This will continue today following which ,this evening, it is likely that he will send to the Assembly of the Republic, for its authorization, the draft diploma that renews the State of Emergency for fifteen days, until 1st March 2021, allowing the adoption of measures necessary to contain the spread of Covid-19 disease.

We therefore wait and see the measures that will be announced later this week following the Council of Ministers meeting tomorrow.

Have a Safe Day

Headlines

António Costa says it is necessary to prolong the confinement

The Prime Minister stated yesterday that the current confinement is producing results against Covid-19, but it is necessary to prolong it in view of the high levels of the pandemic and to continue to invest in massive testing and in the tracking capacity.

This position was transmitted by António Costa in his personal account on the social network Twitter, after another meeting at Infarmed, in Lisbon, on the evolution of the epidemiological situation in Portugal.

In relation to the results of this meeting, according to the Prime Minister, it could be “concluded that the current level of confinement is producing results, both in the reduction of cases, and in the pressure on the National Health Service and also in the limitation of the British variant circulation “.

“We also concluded that the greater the intensity of the confinement, the faster the results are; that the high levels of the pandemic require the prolongation of the current level of confinement and that it is necessary to continue to invest in massive testing and in the tracking capacity”, stressed the leader of the executive.

In his message, António Costa also mentioned that “the level of citizens’ confidence in the vaccine has been increasing”.

As long as the pharmaceutical industry continues to produce at the level now estimated, we will be able to achieve the goal of having 70% of the vaccinated adult population by the end of the summer,” he added.

Covid-19. WHO says virus unlikely to escape laboratory

An expert at the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that the new coronavirus is unlikely to have escaped from a Chinese laboratory, instead advocating the possibility of it being transmitted by an animal.

WHO food safety and animal disease expert, Peter Ben Embarek, summarised the research carried out by a team of Chinese scientists and WHO on the possible origins of the new coronavirus in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the first cases of Covid-19 were diagnosed.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology, one of China’s leading virus research laboratories, built an archive of genetic information about coronaviruses in bats after the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, which emerged in the Asian country in 2003.

This led to claims that the Covid-19 could have left that facility, a theory promoted by former US former President Donald Trump.

Together with scientists from the institute, the WHO team, which includes specialists from 10 countries, visited hospitals, research institutes and the seafood market where the first cases were diagnosed.

“Our initial findings suggest that introduction, via an intermediate host species, is the most likely route, which will require more studies and more specific research,” said Embarek

The researchers said they had found no evidence of the presence of the virus in Wuhan before the first cases were diagnosed.

Covid-19

On Tuesday Portugal registered 203 more deaths and 2,583 new cases of Covid-19, according to the daily balance of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS).

Taking into account recoveries, deaths and new cases, with 127,867 cases being active this Tuesday, down 12,777 compared to Monday.

As for hospital admissions, the DGS epidemiological bulletin reveals that 6,070 people are hospitalised in the infirmary, 274 fewer than the previous day, and 862 in intensive care, 15 less compared to Monday.

Health authorities have 171,554 contacts under surveillance, down 9,351 from yesterday.

Today’s data also reveals that an additional 15,157 people were reported to have recovered, bringing the number of recovered to 628,078 since the beginning of the pandemic in Portugal in March 2020.

Regarding the 203 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, 115 occurred in Lisbon and Vale do Tejo, 34 in the Centro region, 35 in the North region, 16 in the Alentejo, one in the Algarve region, one in the Autonomous region of Madeira and one in the Azores.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Portugal has recorded a total of 14,557 deaths and 770,502 cases of infection with the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus

Health

Covid-19: 3,500 lives will be saved by the end of September if vaccination goes as planned

Lisbon, February 9th, 2021 (Lusa) – Epidemiologist Henrique Barros estimated yesterday that if the vaccination process against Covid-19 goes as planned, 3,500 lives will be saved by the end of September.

The estimates, which are based on two scenarios, were presented by the President of the Institute of Public Health of the University of Porto at the meeting to analyse the epidemiological situation of Covid-19, which gathered, at Infarmed (Lisbon), with researchers, the Prime Minister, the President of the Republic, ministers, parties, employers’ confederations, union structures and state councillors.

The parameters used to think about the effect of vaccination are based on a model that considers general hospitalisations and hospitalisations in intensive care units and also vaccinations, assuming two hypotheses of vaccine efficacy: 90 or 70%.

“Assuming that 70% of the population will be vaccinated by the end of September, we have two different scenarios for the speed of vaccination,” he said.

One scenario assumes that two million people will be vaccinated by the end of April and the remaining five million by the end of September.

The other scenario is based on the fact that about four million people can be vaccinated by the end of April, which implies inoculating 4,000 people a day.

“Vaccination is assumed to be random, that is, we will not know whether the person has had an infection or not,” he said, adding that on the day the vaccination started, it was assumed that one million Portuguese people would have been infected and were immune.

Rt is 0.82 in Portugal

The estimated value for the average of the last five days analysed, between January 30th and February 3rd, is 0.82 for Rt (average number of people who each infected). “It is a low value, which clearly indicates a reduction in incidence,” says Baltazar Nunes, responsible for the Epidemiological Research Unit of the National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge (INSA).

The value is below 1 in all regions of the Mainland and in the Azores. Only in Madeira it is at 1.13, “which indicates a phase of growth”, says the expert.

Portugal is one of the countries with the greatest reduction in mobility in the EU

Contrary to what happened in the first weeks of January, Portugal is now one of the countries with the most marked reduction in mobility in the European Union, “in the order of 66%”, says Baltazar Nunes, an INSA epidemiologist.

The models indicate that it is necessary to maintain the confinement measures equivalent to March and April, with schools closed, for two months, in order to achieve lower levels of incidence and hospitalisations in intensive care.

“We need to maintain these measures for a period of two months to bring the number of beds in intensive care below 200 and the incidence to 14 days below 60 cases per 100 thousand inhabitants”, said Baltazar Nunes, from INSA.

There would have been 120 cases of the British variant, but “exponential growth” was avoided

João Paulo Gomes, from the National Institute of Health Dr. Ricardo Jorge, says that the British, Brazilian and South African variants have “a common mutation”, which makes them much more transmissible.

In Portugal, since the beginning of December, more than 200 thousand tests have been carried out, about 40 thousand positive. Of these, 9 thousand were of the British variant. The expert estimates that, between December 1st and February 7th, there were “more than 120 thousand” cases of this variant in Portugal.

However, he said there was “great news”: although it was predicted that, from January to February, the number of cases of this strain would rise from 8% to 65%, these are only about 16% of the total cases. In other words, “we have completely deviated” from these projections, moving from the possibility of “exponential growth” to a “plateau” situation.

Still, João Paulo Gomes expressed some concern about the new California variant, which he says may be more resistant to antibodies and seems to represent, for now, 6.8% of cases in Portugal. “We will be attentive”, he guaranteed.

Regarding behaviours, in the general sense there was a positive recovery after the parties.

On December 11th, about 35% of people admitted leaving home all or almost every day, on February 5th, only 15% of respondents said they admitted to leaving home.

Asked whether they kept two meters at a distance from other people when they left the house, 20% ticked ‘Sometimes/Never’ on 8th January, while only 13% chose this option on 5th February.

Regarding the question: “In the past two weeks, have you been in a group of ten or more people who do not live with you?” 20% of respondents answered affirmatively on December 25, while only 5% answered yes on February 5th.

Vaccinations

Late vaccines, first phase only ends in April. But in September 70% of the population will be vaccinated

Henrique Gouveia e Melo, co-ordinator of the Task Force for the Vaccination Plan, admits that “we are at a time of strangulation of vaccine availability”. Thus, there is a significant decrease in vaccines (compared to the contracted), expecting that we have 1.98 million doses applied in the first quarter – for the moment, the country has 60 thousand vaccines in reserve, for safety reasons to ensure that they are second doses are applied.

This is the state of play in relation to the priority plan: the elderly and most at risk population is 1.14 million, the state employees are 235 thousand people. But “with these two groups we will not be able to finish the first phase until March 31st, so we will extend it to April. It is not a problem of administration, nor logistical, it is access to vaccines”, said the military.

Now, the goal is “to finish the first phase in April. And with the vaccines available, we have 22,000 vaccines per day, which still does not require the solutions established within the NHS.”

In the second quarter it will be four times more. “And there will eventually be a need for faster vaccination solutions, despite the fact that the SNS still has the capacity to respond.” Only in the third quarter, with an even higher rate of vaccination, “it is certain that the extension to new processes of rapid vaccination posts will be one of the solutions. If the vaccines reach the expected rate, if we can do it in time – I think capacity for this – we should reach 70% of the population in late August, early September “, admitted the task force co-ordinator .

Ending with a commitment: “We must finish the entire population later this year, in December”.

Support measures for businesses and employment will continue as long as the pandemic lasts

The Minister of State and Finance, João Leão, underlined that the Government will keep supporting the economy in 2021, as it happened in 2020, in his presentation at the Parliament’s Budget and Finance Committee.

“On the Government side, we want to send a very strong message of support and commitment to companies and workers who see their activity conditioned by the pandemic: the guarantee that measures to support companies and employment will be maintained as long as the pandemic lasts and economic activity is conditioned, whatever the cost, ”he said.

João Leão pointed out that,, in view of the worsening of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Government widened the layoff, created simplified support for micro-enterprises, expanded support for the progressive resumption, expanded the Apoiar program, which supports the breakdowns of small and medium-sized companies, and reactivated the first confinement support measures for self-employed workers, family support, etc.

Economy

Third wave of the pandemic is much more intense than expected”, says Finance Minister

“The third wave of the pandemic was much more intense than expected in Europe and in particular in Portugal and in the countries of southern Europe, more dependent on tourism”, stated Minister of Finance João Leão yesterday.

The minister pointed out that despite the 7.6% drop in GDP, the largest in 100 years, and the deficit forecasts, the economy resisted better than expected. “The deficit review represented 2.2 billion euros more than was expected,” said João Leão.

Employment developments have been better than anticipated, thanks to government support, the minister said. “The provisional unemployment rate for December is expected to be around 6.5% and 7% for the year as a whole,” he added. And despite the drop in GDP, the IRS still grew 3%.

For 2021, the minister stressed that the negative impact of the new confinement, especially in the sectors most affected “will have to lead to a significant revision of the macroeconomic scenario and an upward revision of the predicted deficit”. But he was confident of a “very intense recovery” in the second half of the year, counting, for this purpose, on vaccines, public investment programs, and the injection of 500 million euros by tax, among others.

“We are confident that 2021 will be a year of economic recovery due to this very intense recovery in the second half of this year,” he added. João Leão also admitted that he believes in the possibility of “reaching an economic recovery in 2022 to levels very similar to the pre-pandemic”.

Covid-19: GNR temporarily suspends 10 territorial posts in Castelo Branco

Castelo Branco, 09 Feb 2021 (Lusa) – GNR has temporarily suspended the operation of 10 territorial posts in the district of Castelo Branco due to the “exceptional situation that the country is going through”.

“The temporary suspension of the activity of some Territorial Posts, which already operated under a reduced attendance regime, was based on the particular and exceptional circumstances that the country is going through, in particular the restoration of control of land borders, a task with a strong commitment from the National Republican Guard “, explained the GNR to the Lusa agency.

In the area of the Castelo Branco Territorial Command, activity was temporarily suspended in 10 Reduced Service Points (PAR).

This exceptional and temporary measure covers the Territorial Forest Posts, Cebolais de Cima and Malpica do Tejo (Castelo Branco); Unhais da Serra and Paul (Covilhã), Soalheira (Fundão), Monsanto, Ladoeiro and Rosmaninhal (Idanha-a-Nova) and Cernache do Bonjardim (Sertã).

According to GNR, this measure allowed the temporary transfer of 43 military personnel to the Headquarters of Grouping.

“The Guard [GNR] considered operationally advantageous to adopt this temporary measure, which allows to allocate a greater number of military personnel for the operational service, namely for the control of the land border, stressing that it will only remain in force as long as it appears absolutely necessary, resuming normality as soon as possible “, he concludes.

Other news

EU / Presidency: Council and European Parliament provisional agreement on strengthening EU civil protection

The Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) and the representatives of the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on Monday night on a proposal to strengthen the EU’s civil protection mechanism.

This proposal, according to an official communiqué from the EU Council, will allow the Union and the Member States “to be better prepared for natural and man-made disasters” and to “respond more quickly when they occur, including in cases affecting majority of Member States simultaneously”.

The new rules will enable the European Commission to “close gaps in the field of transport and logistics” and, in urgent cases, “to directly acquire certain additional capabilities of ‘rescEU’”, which, alongside the capabilities organised by Member States, will be “fully financed by the EU budget”.

The Portuguese Presidency of the Council and the representatives of the European Parliament reached a preliminary agreement after a meeting on Monday evening, February 8th, chaired by the Secretary of State for Internal Administration, Patrícia Gaspar.

In an official note sent to the press today, the Ministry of Internal Administration welcomes the previous agreement, highlighting Portugal as “one of the countries that boost development and strengthen the mechanism”.

The Minister of Home Affairs, Eduardo Cabrita, underlines that this mechanism is “an essential instrument of EU solidarity”, as it “provided vital support to Member States facing fires, earthquakes and other devastating disasters”.

In the words of Eduardo Cabrita, the Covid-19 pandemic has shown “the challenges faced when many Member States need support simultaneously” and, therefore, the new rules will allow them to be “even better prepared for similar situations in the future”.