Portugal Situation Report Thursday 16th September 2021
Introduction
Good morning – I start with an apology that we were not able to produce our weekly situation report as usual yesterday due to our General Meeting, which occupied most of our time. So here it is today.
The very good news is that Portugal has the World’s highest percentage of completed vaccinations. More than 8.2 million Portuguese have complete vaccination, which corresponds to 80% of the population, reveals the most recent Vaccination Report from the General Directorate of Health (DGS). The ‘task force’ that coordinates the logistics of vaccination estimates reaching in the last week of this month the goal of 85% of the Portuguese population with complete vaccination.
This is a great achievement and one for which Portugal should be congratulated, in particular the work of Vice Admiral Gouveia e Melo and his team. A major logistical challenge, only a military man with a logistical background could perhaps achieve!
This has placed Portugal at number one position in the world for highest percentage of population fully vaccinated – a remarkable achievement when many comparing Portugal with the UK at the start, were critical of Portugal’s efforts.
Today we have the meeting of Infarmed where the President of the Republic, Prime Minister, and Minister of Health will listen to various experts to analyse the situation concerning the pandemic in order that parliament can consider the way forward. The current Situation of Contingency is due to expire on 30th September, so this will be instrumental in deciding whether this needs to be extended and if so, what measures need remain in place.
According to Expresso, experts believe that “the time has come to lift the generality of restrictions” — including the use of masks, digital certificates, crowded spaces or hand hygiene. The team responsible for the decontamination plan wants to end all mandatory measures against the pandemic. The news is advanced this Wednesday by the weekly Expresso. Experts chose not to be identified. Proposals will be presented at the Infarmed meeting. We await the meeting.
In an interview with Público, Graça Freitas said this week that, in the fight against the pandemic, Portugal is “in a phase of epidemiological transition” and that the Portuguese population “is no longer totally unprotected from the virus”. However, she stressed that the relief of measures will be “gradual” and that it will depend on the behaviour of the virus this winter. “We still don’t know how this virus will behave in its second winter. We learned from the first winter, but we weren’t protected [vaccination],” he safeguarded.
Another piece of good news is that there are no weather warning in place today. When we have storms, despite the technology available, the path and speed of these can be sometimes difficult to project due to many factors. The criteria for warnings is clearly set out on the IPMA website based on wind speed and rainfall. It is important to distinguish between “showers” and “rain”. Scattered showers sometimes heavy mean exactly that. In other words short lived, maybe a few minutes and no predetermined exact location and timing. Because you do not experience these, does not mean to say that the forecast was wrong.
As far as Safe Communities is concerned we take the information primarily from the IPMA and the ECMWF which is used by the IPMA, supplemented by other international organisation which use modelling appropriate to Portugal. For instance in the case of tropical cyclones (luckily few and far between), we often use the US hurricane Centre which has advanced technology especially as far as tracking is concerned.
So if the weather does not turn out to be as was forecasted on our Facebook page do not shoot the messenger!
Being prepared is far better than not, and if the storm does affect you, all well and good. At the same time please do not assume others have not been affected causing damage to property or worse.
Let’s hope for improving weather over the last few days and maintain the low fire risk as we head towards the end of the Critical Fire Period in 2 weeks’ time.
With that have a Safe day.
Covid 19
Confirmed Cases: 1.058.347 (+ 1247 / + 0.12 %)
Number of admitted: 527 (-24 /-4.36 %)
Number of ICU admitted: 119 (+ 3 / + 2.59 %)
Deaths: 17.882 (+ 10 / + 0.06 %)
Recovered: 1.004.925 (+ 1686 / + 0.17 %)
Active cases 35,540 (-449 / – 1.24%)
The area of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo, with 457 new cases, and the North region, with 380, have 67.1% of the total of new infections verified in the last 24 hours.
There are 24 fewer patients in the country’s hospitals, with the total now standing at 527 inpatients — the lowest number in the last two and a half months, since 532 admissions were registered on July 2nd.
In intensive care units there are 119 patients, three more than the day before.
Health
Covid-19 Incidence and transmission rates
The incidence of covid-19, updated in this Wednesday’s bulletin, is 191.1 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the national territory and 196.1 on the mainland – to find a lower value it is necessary to go back to 2 July. The R(t), or transmissibility index, dropped to 0.84 for the entire national territory and to 0.83 for the continent – the lowest values since March.
On Monday, 208.3 cases per 100,000 inhabitants had been registered in the national territory and 214 in the mainland. R(t) was 0.85 in Portugal and 0.84 on the mainland on that same day.
Covid-19: Infarmed registers 41 suspected cases of “failure” of the Janssen vaccine
Lisbon, 15 Sep 2021 (Lusa) – The national pharmacovigilance system detected 41 cases of “suspected vaccine failure” in people who received the Janssen vaccine, 36 of which were considered serious, the National Medicines Authority (Infarmed) said today.
“Were notified to the national pharmacovigilance system until yesterday (Tuesday), 41 cases of suspected vaccine failure with the Janssen vaccine, of which 36 were classified as serious,” said the regulatory authority Lusa.
On Monday, the French Medicines Agency (ANSM) indicated that a “significant number” of cases of failure of the Janssen covid-19 vaccine, which works with a single dose, had been detected in that country.
“A significant number of cases of Janssen vaccine failure have been reported, including severe forms (death, resuscitation) as well as an above-normal presence of patients vaccinated with Janssen in the intensive care of two CHU (University Hospital Centers),” in Marseille (south) and Tours (west), provided the ANSM in its periodic surveillance report on vaccines.
In Portugal, according to Infarmed, out of a total of 36 serious situations detected, “five led to hospitalization and 31 were considered clinically relevant”, being people who tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus more than 14 days after receiving the single-dose vaccine.
“Considering that in Portugal more than one million doses of this vaccine have already been administered, this would represent an incidence of four reported cases per 100,000 vaccines”, added the national regulator, guaranteeing that this number of notifications “is far below the expected value, taking into account the results obtained in the clinical trials used for the approval of this vaccine”.
In France, among people vaccinated with Janssen’s drug, 32 cases of infection with covid-19 were reported, corresponding to an incidence of 3.78 cases per 100,000 people.
Covid-19: Outbreak with eight patients at Hospital Amadora-Sintra
The Hospital Professor Doutor Fernando Fonseca detected today eight cases of covid-19 in patients admitted to the ‘Orthopedics A’ service and has already activated the contingency plan to contain and mitigate the risk of contagion, said source hospital.
According to a note sent to Lusa, infected patients were transferred to an infirmary dedicated to covid-19 and, for now, there are no cases of infection among health professionals who were in direct contact with these patients in the provision of care.
“Positive cases were detected early on Wednesday morning, thanks to the strict testing protocol of the HFF, which provides for a PCR test for all patients at the time of admission to the ward and, subsequently, on the fifth day of hospitalization. ”, says the note.
According to the hospital, the contingency plan was immediately activated to contain and mitigate the risk of contagion, “through the implementation of differentiated circuits for patients who are infected”, which involved the transfer to an infirmary dedicated to covid-19, the restriction of admissions and new admissions to that ward.
Hospital Fernando da Fonseca also says that patients infected with covid-19 are stable.
Experts will propose the end of mandatory measures at the meeting at Infarmed
The team responsible for the decontamination plan wants to end all mandatory measures against the pandemic. The news is advanced this Wednesday by the weekly Expresso. Experts chose not to be identified. Proposal will be presented at the next Infarmed meeting.
According to the publication, experts believe that “the time has come to lift the generality of restrictions” — including the use of masks, digital certificates, crowded spaces or hand hygiene.
This Thursday’s meeting, scheduled for 15:00, will take place in a “semi-present” format.
At Infarmed, writes Expresso, experts will defend that “there is no need to maintain mandatory measures anywhere”, but rather “to re-educate the population for the self-assessment of risk, leaving behaviour to the discretion of each one”.
The end of all restrictions on schools and public transport is the only matter still in doubt for experts.
“With all certainty, more conservative positions will emerge, right from the General Directorate of Health, but it is necessary that everyone understands that Portugal is in ideal conditions to make a return to normality”, present the experts.
Portugal is about to reach the target of 85% of the population with vaccination against full covid-19 , which, according to the coordinator of the ‘task-force’, Vice Admiral Gouveia e Melo, should happen by the end of the month with the vaccination centers gradually being deactivated.
In an interview with Público, Graça Freitas said this week that, in the fight against the pandemic, Portugal is “in a phase of epidemiological transition” and that the Portuguese population “is no longer totally unprotected from the virus”. However, he stressed that the relief of measures will be “gradual” and that it will depend on the behaviour of the virus this winter. “We still don’t know how this virus will behave in its second winter. We learned from the first winter, but we weren’t protected [vaccination],” he safeguarded.
The obligation to wear a mask on the street lasted almost a year, now it is no longer mandatory, but it continues to be recommended in crowded places or in situations where it is not possible to maintain distance. The General Directorate of Health updated the recommendations, also reiterating the situations in which the use of a mask remains mandatory.
Other news
Over 100 occurrences due to bad weather in Leiria
Leiria, 15 Sept 2021 (Lusa) – More than 100 occurrences related to bad weather were registered in the district of Leiria, throughout Tuesday, a source from the District Command for Relief Operations (CDOS) told the Lusa news agency today.
Between 00:00 and 23:59, the district civil protection registered a total of 104 occurrences, mostly related to flooding.
According to a CDOS source, 84 situations related to flooding “due to intense rainfall” were reported.
There were also records of five falls of trees, nine landslides and two falls of structures.
“The most affected municipalities were Leiria, Alcobaça, Marinha Grande and Caldas da Rainha, in this order of more expressive situations”, said the same source, noting that there were no victims.
A source from the Municipal Civil Protection Service of Leiria said, on Tuesday, that in the municipality “there were some occurrences in the parish of Maceira, with some houses and companies registering floods”.
“We still had specific situations in the city. The reported cases are not serious and we are monitoring and monitoring the situation”, said this source.
Good morning – Yesterday was a very unusual day, almost unique in terms of rural fires, certainly for September, in that at 20.00 hrs there were NO fires, either Active, In resolution or concluded. This is so unusual in Portugal during the Critical Fire Period, I contacted the ANEPC in Lisbon and they confirmed that this was indeed the case.
Leslie made landfall in the central region of Portugal, resulting in extensive material damage in Figueira da Foz, and placed thirteen districts under red warning due to strong winds and waves. It was considered the biggest storm to hit Portugal since 1842
The number in hospital is the lowest figure in almost two months, since on July 10th there were 632 hospitalized. There are also five fewer patients in Intensive Care Units (total: 135).
The Epidemiology Group of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) will be heard in parliament on Wednesday about the mandatory use of masks, following a request by the PSD approved this Tuesday, a parliamentary source told Lusa.
Almost eight thousand nurses have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic in Portugal, which represents about 10% of professionals registered with the Order, the organization said.
In a statement, Infarmed says that the “3Ply Type II Face Mask”, model M3PII, from the manufacturer BesilChem LLP, unduly bears the CE marking as there is no evidence of compliance with all applicable legal requirements at European level, including the fact that the technical documentation is incomplete.
The children and young people, unaccompanied, were welcomed in Portugal under the Voluntary Relocation Program and are from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Ghana, Iraq, Pakistan and Sudan, says a joint statement from the cabinets of the ministers of State and of Sudan. Presidency, of Internal and Labour Administration, Solidarity and Social Security.
Luckily we live in a country which has advance weather forecasting and importantly, close communications between the meteorologists at the IPMA and technicians at Civil Protection. They meet daily by video link where the weather forecasts are discussed and analysed together with various warnings. This enables the identification of conditions that may require special measures, such as increasing internal operational deployments of emergency services and/or the issuing of ANEPC Notifications to the public.
Whilst on the subject of rural fires a reminder to take care when using BBQs during periods of very high or maximum fire risk. There are laws on this subject in public areas. In your garden please follow the advice concerning safety available on our website and the Facebook post yester. Should use of a BBQ result in a fire the user can be held liable.
In a statement sent to newsrooms, the structure, led by Vice Admiral Gouveia e Melo, announced that 75% of children have already received the first dose of the vaccine.
“We have received 66 people so far and today a group of around 20 people will arrive. And, therefore, we will already have a significant number”, said the minister, in Guarda.
mapping quality, together with basic information. At present it provides only the number of resources deployed – my reaction to this is “so what”. Reporting updates of the number of operatives, supporting vehicles and aircraft every few minutes on its own is not of great help. For this reason, although we monitor closely, the fact that these statistics are available directly from ANEPC or Fogos.pt, we do not report this, except when a fire has developed to a stage where it has a potential to become a major fire incident, or close to property for example.
According to a press release from the National Maritime Authority, “the elements of the local Command of the Maritime Police of Figueira da Foz, in collaboration with the PSP, interrupted a gathering of about 200 people who were in the Praça do Forte, in Figueira da Foz”.
It is now the final phase of the “race” – the emergency plan to vaccinate around 9 million people in the shortest possible time. The country surpasses the stage in which adolescents aged between 12 and 15 are being vaccinated. From a universe of 380 thousand, almost 50% received the first dose last weekend, announces the coordinator – and “in a period of vacation”.