Algarve Situation Report, Saturday 13th March 2021.
Covid-19
The District Civil Protection Commission of Faro confirmed today that there are 427 active cases of Covid-19 in the Algarve.
According to data from the regional health delegate, 19,921 infected people were registered up until yesterday, another 30 in the last 24 hours and 19,153 recovered (cumulative).
There are 400 patients recovering at home, plus 27 inpatients, 7 in the Intensive Care Units and 5 ventilated. The same source says that since the beginning of the pandemic, 341 deaths have been registered in the region.
590 people are currently under active surveillance.
Compared to last week’s bulletin, 273 fewer active cases and 124 new cases are confirmed. Another 393 people are recovered.
There are 12 less hospitalized, 3 less patients in intensive care and 1 less ventilated (5). Under active surveillance there are 173 fewer people.

AMAL approved the economic recovery plan for the Algarve.
The 16 mayors of the region today approved, in an extraordinary meeting of the Intermunicipal Council, the Economic Recovery Plan for the Algarve and a regional strategy to combat the effects caused by Covid-19 on the economy.
A statement from AMAL states that the implementation of the plan provides, “on the one hand, to use public investment in order to enable the region to respond to the crisis and prepare it for the future, making it more cohesive, competitive, resilient and sustainable; and, on the other hand, to mobilize private investment in order to leverage the growth potential and the economic dynamism generated by the public component”.
Of the various items in the plan, the entity highlights a set of investments – 33 differentiating projects – for the region. Among them are the construction of the Hospital Central Universitário do Algarve; the development of the Commercial Port of Portimão; Faro European Capital of Culture; the ABC Loulé Project – Health Research Centre; construction of a seawater desalination infrastructure and the rehabilitation and electrification of the Algarve railway line.
The Economic Recovery Plan for the Algarve also includes several thematic packages, which aggregate the projects considered relevant for each of the municipalities in the Algarve.
The document now approved – and whose preparation work started last year, in close collaboration with the Faculty of Economics of the University of Algarve, is understood as a recommendation. “The fact that it is not watertight allows, over time, adjustments to be made according to the needs felt in the region”, reads the same statement.
In addition to this plan, the Algarve Intermunicipal Community – AMAL, says that it sent to the Government, within the scope of the public consultation of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), its contributions with a survey of the investment needs and intentions proposed by the Municipalities of the Algarve, according to the priorities set by the European Union and Portugal for the next programming period.

International exercise «NeamWave21».
The Municipal Civil Protection Service of Portimão (SMPC) participated on Wednesday, March 10th, in «NeamWave21», an international simulation and response to a tsunami exercise, whose main objective was to test the readiness of this alert system.
Through this action, the municipality of Portimão joined the National Authority for Emergency and Civil Protection and the Portuguese Institute for the Sea and the Atmosphere, as well as other entities throughout the national territory, to test the communication procedures to be implemented after the arrival of the tsunami warning message.
The fictitious scenario outlined focused on the occurrence of an earthquake recorded at 09h07, whose epicentre was located close to the sea of ​​Morocco, with a magnitude of 8.6 on the Richter scale and a depth of 27 kms.
As a result, the Municipal Emergency Plan for Civil Protection of Portimão was tested sectorally, as well as the system of warning to the population inherent to the occurrence, which would have hypothetically resulted 924 fatalities, 3,089 displaced and 9,506 homes destroyed, among other considerable material damages. .
In accordance with the need to relocate the affected people, using 58 buses for this purpose, itineraries were drawn up for the ZCAP – Concentration and Support Zones for the Population, one in each parish of Portimão, and even to the temporary accommodation places, located in eight hotels in the municipality.
The experience, according to the municipality, “will allow to improve the tested procedures and mechanisms, to correct and adjust them, creating capacities and automating processes, all the more so since the Porto municipality is revising its Municipal Civil Protection Emergency Plan. This learning moment will make it possible to incorporate corrective measures in the new content, which will soon be submitted to public consultation”.

Municipality of Loulé launches local trade stimulus package that plans to support more than 600 companies.
This afternoon (Friday), the Municipality of Loulé will present a package of measures to mitigate the effects of this last confinement on the local economy, at 3 pm, at the Gama Lobo Palace, with live transmission on Facebook, having prepared a campaign to stimulate trade, in the initial amount of one million euros.
The campaign, promoted by the Municipality of Loulé in conjunction with ACRAL – Association of Commerce and Services of the Algarve Region and NERA – Business Association of the Algarve Region, in collaboration with the Association of Entrepreneurs Por Quarteira and Associação Restauração e Comércio e Restoration of the City of Loulé, which will start with the period of lack of definition, “intends to stimulate the local economy quickly and effectively”, says the municipality.
With this initiative, it is expected to support, in an initial phase, more than 600 companies.
Vítor Aleixo, a Louletan mayor, considers that “this initiative will make it possible to multiply the financial return for our traders, encouraging in an innovative way consumption in local commerce. This is another considerable and important support provided by the Municipality of Loulé, which, in addition to all the work and investment carried out in this area since the beginning of the pandemic, will now invest more than 1 million euros to respond in a clear and effective way to needs of the county’s micro companies, the sectors of activity most affected.”

Algarve Situation Report, Wednesday 10th March 2021
MAR Shopping Algarve raises money for homeless social reintegration projects.
During the month of March, MAR Shopping Algarve launches a donation and fundraising campaign for two homeless social reintegration projects that are being implemented in the Algarve by Associação GATO – Support Group for Drug Addicts.
Under the motto “the smallest gesture makes the biggest difference”, the campaign to collect household appliances and equipment aims to help equip the “Shared Apartments” and the “Projecto – Casa Ajuda”, integrated in the national initiative Housing First, two social responses that are being activated in Loulé and that, in total, will support a total of 15 homeless people.
Donations of equipment and materials, new or second-hand, can be made at the MAR Shopping Algarve Information Desk until March 31st. The two types of housing projects will start operating in mid-March and are already furnished, making it necessary to complement the installations with appliances such as irons, televisions, toasters, coffee machines or magic wands, as well as other elements essential to life daily life, such as towels, pillows, blankets, comforters and sheets, lamps, kitchen linen or toilet utensils, describes a note issued today by MAR Shopping.
Through the GATO Association, two temporary “shared apartments” will be implemented, with a capacity for ten people, and five individual dwellings in the “Housing First” typology, a pioneer in the Algarve and a recent innovation in responding to this social problem. These housing models aim to reintegrate and integrate homeless people into society, promoting independent living and monitoring by a technical team, which focuses on areas such as health, education, work, hygiene and domestic management.
Associação GATO is also collaborating with the Municipality of Loulé in the initiatives of “Shared Apartments” and the Projeto – Casa Ajuda “Housing First, which in total will help 15 people.

More than 30 thousand people may be receiving food support in the Algarve
The deputy of the Left Wing Parliamentary Group, João Vasconcelos, and other members of the Left Algarve Block, met with the board of Banco Alimentar do Algarve in order to understand, the difficulties that the institution faces and the impact of the crisis on families in the region.
According to the Bloc, the Food Bank reported that last year, only between April and December, due to the crisis that the pandemic brought to the region, requests for food aid increased significantly, 74%, from 16,200 people supported through 104 institutions, to 26,300 people, through 119 institutions, making the Food Bank go from 2 million to 3.3 million units of food products distributed.
In the same information, the fact that “such a big deal has never been reached” by the Food Bank in the Algarve is underlined as in the year 2020. Not even at the peak of the previous crisis where the maximum support reached 23,000 people. BE clarifies that the Food Bank, “although the number of donations has increased, and requests for support, are experiencing difficulties in responding to the requested support”.
In view of the current crisis, resulting from the pandemic, at the moment people supported at food level in the Algarve should already exceed 30,000. For the Bloco de Esquerda, the Algarve “is experiencing an authentic social catastrophe and the government is primarily responsible, as it is not giving due and necessary responses to people, families and companies, and has not yet presented any plan to combat crisis in the region, despite having been announced several months ago “, considering it to be” an unacceptable and unsustainable situation “.

Algarve Situation Report, Saturday March 6th 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.

Algarve Situation Report, Wednesday 3rd March.
Covid-19: Most Algarve municipalities at moderate risk, only 4 at high risk
The Directorate-General for Health (DGS) released this Monday, the incidence rates of Covid-19 cases, per 100 thousand inhabitants, referring to the Portuguese counties, in the period between 10th and 23rd February.
In the Algarve, there are no municipalities at extreme risk (over 960 cases per 100,000 inhabitants) or at very high risk (+ 480 to 960).
At high risk (+240 to 480) there are 4 municipalities, namely: Castro Marim – 465, Vila Real de Stº António – 421, Monchique – 276 and Portimão – 251.
At moderate risk, (less than 240), are found most of the municipalities in the region, (12): Faro – 221 , Olhão – 203, Albufeira – 207, Lagos – 181, Lagoa – 167, Loulé – 169, Silves – 152, São Brás de Alportel – 144, Tavira – 126, Vila do Bispo – 58, Alcoutim – 46, Aljezur – 18.
This Monday, DGS confirmed only 12 new cases in the Algarve with no death record. Portugal today registered 34 deaths and 394 new cases of infection with the new coronavirus, the lowest number of cases since September, according to the same entity.

Faro City Council launches package with four support measures.
The Faro City Council announced the launch of a set of support and specific initiatives to support the Culture sector, one of the most affected by the measures enacted to contain and mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic.
The municipality says it is “aware of its role and its responsibility in the context of the cultural and creative sector”, thus launching this set of initiatives in partnership with Teatro das Figuras.
In this sense, for 2021, the municipality of Faro prepared a package of four extraordinary measures, highlighting the support for associations, artistic creation and cultural agents. In this context, the municipality will reinforce the support planned for 2021.
During this year, a second edition of the artistic program called «Emergente – 2º Ciclo» will also take place , which consists of a program of artistic residencies whose result will be presented in 2022, at Teatro das Figuras, in the exhibition spaces of the municipality or its partners. , in public space or in initiatives organized by the City Council.
Also, with a return scheduled for 2021, after the success of the first edition, is the cycle «Bands to Figures». The initiative sets the stage, at Teatro das Figuras, for the vibrant music scene in the region.
Starting in April, this creation consists of a program of concerts held using all the technical conditions of the large auditorium, with streaming in digital platforms of Teatro das Figuras and the municipality of Faro.
Since the country was once again in a situation of confinement and the artists were prevented from making presentations to the public, the council proposed to embody a new project to support musicians in the region, namely Dj’s and artists of Portuguese popular music.
The new #FaroMúsicaNaStreet is a concert program held in different locations in the municipality, with streaming in streaming through the municipality’s digital platforms.
Applications for these projects are open and the application forms are available until 12th March on the websites of Teatro das Figuras and the municipality of Faro , where it will be possible to access additional information.
https://barlavento.sapo.pt/algarve/covid-19-faro-anuncia-iniciativas-para-apoiar-setor-da-cultura

The Municipality of Olhão marked the World Civil Protection Day, with the opening of a Temporary Emergency Accommodation.
The social response, which was inaugurated by the mayor, António Miguel Pina, has a capacity for 10 people, and according to a note from the city council, “aims to create an alternative of immediate and temporary support to people living in the municipality, who are evicted afterwards serious accident or catastrophe, such as a fire, flood, landslide, or other exceptional situation “.
In this way, families living in the municipality without back-up support will have, in one of these eventualities, a temporary accommodation solution, in addition to the services of the Social Security Institute.
According to the same source, Olhão’s Temporary Emergency Accommodation has a maximum duration of 48 hours and can be extended for an equal period, with all situations previously assessed by the Municipal Civil Protection Service, in conjunction with the Action Division. Social.

BE party meet with officials from the IEFP regional delegation on the consequences of unemployment in the Algarve.
At the request of the Bloco de Esquerda do Algarve, an online meeting took place yesterday between members of the BE and the IEFP regional delegation.
Representing the IEFP was present the Regional Delegate, Madalena Feu, and António Palma, director of the Employment and Professional Training Services. Deputy João Vasconcelos, Celeste Santos, Augusto Taveira, from the BE / Algarve Secretariat, Vítor Ruivo, Grupo Laboral and Marco Pereira represented the party.
In a statement, the Bloc said that João Vasconcelos “exposed some of the biggest concerns regarding the continuity of the economic and social crisis that has been on the region for a year, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic”.
Emphasis was given to the growing number of unemployed and job insecurity, “as well as a large number of informal workers without work and completely dependent on government support and city councils”.
The elements of the BE emphasized at the meeting the importance of being known the data, as accurate as possible, on all these situations of job loss, closing of companies, dismissals, number of companies or workers in lay-off, with a view to support measures are “much more strengthened to serve all affected workers”.
They also highlighted the existence of some discrepancy between the unemployment figures released by the IEFP and the INE, as well as workers who are not considered unemployed, in the case of available inactive workers, unemployed workers, but in vocational training and other partial work situations.
According to the same document from the Bloc, Madalena Feu made a presentation on the efforts made by the regional IEFP in monitoring and disseminating unemployment situations in the Algarve, “seeking to make available to the unemployed different types of support provided for under the IEFP, either directly with workers, either through companies “.

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