Immunity tests in development, and overcrowded hostels spark outbreak concern
English language coronavirus news in Portugal on April 22, 2020.
Another steady day for the numbers so I’ll keep this brief. Confirmed cases and deaths seem to be staying on roughly the same trajectory as they have for the past week, give or take half a percentage point. Recovered cases once again make the biggest increase, a 25% jump to 1143.
There are 30 different Portuguese immunity tests in the works
Public and private Portuguese laboratories are betting everything to unearth solutions for testing how much of the population is immune to the novel coronavirus, reports Diário de Notícias. The national medicines authority, Infarmed, says 30 different serological tests, which look for the virus antibodies that could indicate immunity, are already in production. At least one of those, from the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Lisbon, could soon be ready for mass production with the help of a biotech partner, DN reports. IMM virologist and researcher Pedro Simas says the tests will be able to collect data that doesn’t exist yet, centralise it and help better inform future decisions. Director-general of Health Graça Freitas said the generalisation of serological tests was being planned in preparation for a serological study of the population to begin at the start of May.
For more information about testing for antibodies, this explainer from MIT Technology Review is super helpful. These articles from The Telegraph in the UK and the New York Times in the US go into some of the problems we’ve already seen with attempts to roll out similar testing in those countries.
In more testing news, João Hospital in Porto has started carrying out fast tests to diagnose the illness, according to Diário de Notícias. The hospital’s pathology clinic says the molecular biology tests can produce results in about 50 minutes. There’s only limited availability so they’ll be used mostly within emergency rooms.
Experts warn of lesser-known symptoms
Cough, fever, muscle pain, headaches, general weakness and difficulty breathing are the most common COVID-19 symptoms in Portugal, Público reports. But the newspaper goes on to highlight that symptoms such as vomiting, diarrhea and even hives have been going unrecognised. If they’re ignored, experts are warning in Spain, undiagnosed patients could start new chains of active transmission. The newspaper also highlights that chest pain and a loss of smell are not to be ignored, after the British Medical Journal noted a small study in Italy that found up to 53% had taste or olfactory disorders.
Fear of an explosion of cases due to overloaded hostels
The Lisbon hostel where more than 130 guests were infected is still in the news. There are concerns other similarly overloaded accommodation could lead to an explosion in cases, Público reported last night. The Lisbon city council and Arroios parish council don’t know how many hostels, inns and boarding houses are being used to house hundreds of asylum seekers. The Defence Minister tells Público today that the Economic and Food Safety Authority inspected the original hostel and “everything indicates that the conditions were not in accordance with the criteria that we established”. There are about 200 asylum seekers in Portuguese Refugee Council facilities, and 800 spread across other accommodation in Lisbon. The refugee council says 19 migrants who weren’t in the hostel on the day of testing have been found”.
An explanation for the sudden jump in recoveries
More tests and better reporting are helping to increase the number of COVID-19 patients officially marked as recovered, Público reports. Yesterday, total recoveries passed total deaths for the first time, after three days in which no one was added to the cured list. We see another big jump today (226 people - a 25% jump). The Directorate-General of Health (DGS) says that’s in part due to a reinforcement of reporting through the regional health authorities. DGS expects the number to keep growing because the largest number of confirmed positive cases came at the end of March into the start of April.
In brief
Controversy continues to bubble around how Parliament will commemorate the revolution of April 25
Even without the deaths from COVID-19, Portugal had "excess mortality" between March and April
On a lighter note
Let’s be honest, I should just call this section “what I want to eat this week”. Time Out normally focuses pretty much exclusively on things that have been completely shut down by the pandemic: restaurants, bars, events, mass gatherings of people etc. But now its producing lists of things to help keep you sane during quarantine. This one featuring 74 great options for takeaway and delivery in Lisbon is being regularly updated and this one has 65 options in Porto. If you’ve always stuck to the English version of, you might not know that the editors save the best stuff for the locals (Sorry to everyone who already knows this).