Everything you need to know about July 1 changes, and the biggest increase in cases in more than a month
Portuguese news in English on June 26, 2020
By the numbers
It’s not great news heading into the weekend unfortunately. Today’s increase in new confirmed cases is the biggest since May 8, and six more COVID-19 patients have died. About 200-300 people are being marked as recovered every day now but it’s not enough to outweigh the new cases, meaning the number of active infections is increasing. About 75% of the new cases are in the Lisbon and Tejo Valley region, according to Público’s calculations.
Everything you need to know about the July 1 changes
Portugal’s road to reopening has been split into three to counter the continued growth of cases in Greater Lisbon, specifically 19 freguesias (parishes) mostly outside of the capital itself. There was a little bit of confused reporting around this yesterday so I decided to wait until today to let you know everything you need to in one go. All these changes kick in on July 1, and I’ll run you through what will be different depending on where you live.
Most of the country
For anyone living outside of the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, very little will change on July 1. You won’t be able to drink in public, just as is the case right now in Greater Lisbon and gatherings will continue to be limited to 20 people, Diário de Notícias reports. The big change is the introduction of fines ranging from €100 to €500 for individuals and €1000 to €5000 for collectives such as businesses, for breaking the restrictions. Of course, infected people must stay home and you must continue to observe social distancing, hand washing, mask wearing and all the other practices we’ve come to know. This part of the country also passes from a state of “calamity” down to “alert”.
Lisbon Metropolitan Area (AML)
July 1 will actually represent a slight loosening of regulations for those who live in Greater Lisbon but not inside the 19 most-affected freguesias. While the majority of commerce must shut at 8pm, restaurants can stay open to serve meals and supermarkets will be able to open until 10pm. There are also exceptions for service stations, clinics, vets, pharmacies and sports facilities. You still won’t be able to buy alcohol from service stations or attend gatherings of more than 10 people. The AML will pass into a “contingency” situation.
The 19 freguesias
The entirety of Amadora and Odivelas councils will stay in a state of “calamity”, along with six freguesias in Sintra, two in Loures and just one, Santa Clara, at the northern edge of Lisbon council itself. The major changes here are that the 700,000 residents of this area (see map below) are again subject to the “civic duty” to stay home unless they need to go out, gatherings are limited to five people or less and markets and pop-up markets are prohibited. There will also be reinforced vigilance applied to people subject to mandatory confinement.
The 19 most-affected freguesias. Source: Portuguese Government
Yesterday, Prime Minister António Costa said 71% of the new cases were in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, describing the situation as still stable, “manageable and controllable”.
On a national level, Portugal’s “R” reproduction rate was 1.08 in the past five days, the Prime Minister said, indicating a slight growth in the number of cases.
He again pointed to Portugal’s high rate of testing and urged caution in comparing its case numbers with other countries.
“It is evident that tests don’t create cases, but it’s also evident that if I don’t test I don’t have cases,” he said.
“If there are more cases, there are more cases.”
You can see some charts that help to explain the different situations for various parts of the country in this Público article.
Cracking down too hard on kids risks making things worse, experts say
Big gatherings of young people have alarmed authorities recently because of their potential to rapidly spread the virus. But experts warn it’s not that young people don’t care about others but that they’re sick of being confined and extreme measures might worsen any sense of “rebellion”, Público reports. With school finished for the year and any chance of summer festivals slipping through their fingers, convincing young people to maintain social distancing demands a tailor-made campaign. University of Lisbon psychologist Professor Margarida Gaspar de Matos said reacting too strongly risked creating a social divide that didn’t help anyone in terms of public health.
‘Air bridges’ and the problems with ranking countries
I spoke to one of Portugal’s most-respected epidemiologists, Professor Henrique Barros, for this Telegraph piece about the UK’s “air bridge” proposal. The plan will allow British people to visit certain countries without needing to quarantine when they go home. For anyone looking to visit people in the UK and for the Portuguese tourist industry, the big news is the potential for Portugal to be left off that list, thanks to the outbreak in Lisbon. Professor Barros told me there was no basis in “scientific or empirical information” to make that decision. But I also thought his complaints about the simplistic way in which we tend to rank countries’ responses to the pandemic were interesting. Apart from the big difference in testing between countries, he said new cases per capita wasn’t a particularly useful measure because it couldn’t distinguish between one large, highly contained outbreak and several smaller but more widespread focuses. He also said the “R” number so often used by politicians both here and abroad didn’t make any sense on a national level, only regionally.
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In brief
The drug Remdesevir recommended to treat COVID-19. Portugal already uses it under strict conditions. (Diário de Notícias)
More complaints, less police and degraded police stations at Lisbon's airport. The police union has had enough and is complaining. (Diário de Notícias)
On a lighter note
Walking the streets you may have noticed Lisbon is full of vintage neon signs. Unfortunately quite a few of them are decaying above closed-down shops, but one Portuguese couple is doing their best to rescue them. Designers Paulo Barata and Rita Múrias have collected more than 250 of the amazing signs and will be displaying a small selection of them until July 12. When they first started it was hard to explain to shopkeepers why they wanted the old signs but they’re happy to have been able to save them. Exposição Luzes da Cidade (Lights of the City Exposition) is in Stolen Books, on Avenida EUA, from Thursdays to Sundays, 3-7pm, with all the usual social distancing measures in place.
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