New subvariant of Omicron circulating in Portugal // Sunday’s election to go down to the wire
Portuguese news in English on Saturday, January 30, 2022.
By the numbers
Cases and hospitalisations are still skyrocketing while deaths creep up slowly and the number of Covid-19 patients in intensive care remains essentially flat. There are almost 250 more people in hospital with Covid-19 than last week, the average number of daily deaths is up by 10 and the average number of daily cases is up by 10,000. I think I may have found part of the explanation for why ICU numbers and hospitalisations have been so out of whack for so long, which you can read further down.
I know I said there wouldn’t be a newsletter this week but I got my dates mixed up. In fact, next week there will be no newsletter, but I’ll see you all again the following week.
Sunday’s election to go down to the wire
If the polls are anything to go by (and they aren’t necessarily), it’s going to be a brutal election on Sunday, with the two major parties too close together to call, Público reports. The latest opinion survey from the Universidade Católica Portuguesa for Público, RTP and Antena1 has incumbent Prime Minister António Costa’s Socialist Party (PS) on 36% and opposition leader Rui Rio’s Social Democratic Party (PSD) on 33%. That’s three points better for right-wing PSD and three points worse for left-wing PS than the previous poll.
The next most popular parties are Liberal Initiative (in the sense of free-market capitalism rather than American liberals) far-left Left Bloc (BE) and the far-right Chega, all with 6%. If these figures hold true, it means Mr Costa’s dreams of an absolute majority are a long way from reality and PSD can only manage a majority for the right with the help of Chega, which Mr Rio has refused. You can read more about Mr Ventura’s history of criticising minorities and poor people and his extreme policies such as chemical castration of paedophiles and a single income tax rate from Reuters and the Financial Times. There are broader looks at the elections from Politico and the BBC, all in English.
New subvariant of Omicron circulating in Portugal
The BA.2 subvariant of Omicron, sometimes called “stealth Omicron”, is circulating in Portugal, Público reports. Scientists are still trying to work out whether it’s more contagious than the original version, but it does appear harder to detect and does not appear to be more severe. The emergence is making it harder to predict the peak of this current wave of Covid-19 cases but by spring or summer, Lusa reports, European health authorities believe the “majority of EU citizens” will have been infected with the coronavirus. That should result in fewer cases and a possible transition from a pandemic to an endemic disease.
Many Covid-19 cases are in hospital for other conditions
One more huge change from last winter to this winter: Many of the Covid-19 cases currently in Portuguese hospitals are being treated for other issues and also happen to be infected rather than being hospitalised for Covid-19 itself, Público reports. This was an argument used by many to downplay the severity of the disease earlier in the pandemic but it’s only now — with the super-infectious Omicron variant, which scientists say also causes less severe disease — that it actually reflects reality. And it might go a long way to explaining why ICU numbers have stayed flat since early-mid December. but the number of Covid-19 patients in ICU is almost exactly the same. The numbers differ significantly from place to place but hospital officials say the percentage of incidental Covid-19 cases can be anywhere from 40% in Coimbra all the way up to 70-75% in Porto. Even in the ICU, senior doctor Nélson Pereira said 40% of Covid-19 cases in the São João Hospital were there for other reasons and the press team at Lisbon’s Santa Maria Hospital said its figure was 27%. Even if they’re being treated for other conditions, Covid-19 patients can massively complicate things for hospital staff who must keep them separated from other patients.
The information comes amid plans to potentially change the way Portugal monitors the spread of the coronavirus to be more like the flu. The Dr Ricardo Jorge National Health Institute is in the early stages of studying a new model that would include weekly numbers and monitoring of “sentinels” including hospitals and labs, Público reports.
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In brief
Booster shot bookings open for all adults. Head to the online portal to book your third shot if you’re 18 and over. Flu shots are also available for over-50s. (Público)
Workers in Portugal paid less than minimum wage to pick berries destined for UK supermarkets. Workers, mostly from south Asia, said their payslips often listed fewer hours than what they actually worked. (The Guardian, in English)
EU medications regulator gives green light to first oral Covid-19 treatment. Pfizer’s new antiviral Paxlovid has been recommended for authorisation by the European Medications Agency. (Público)
More people are asking for saliva-only PCR tests, but still less than 10%. The Directorate-General of Health says the tests, which don’t require a brain poking, are trustworthy, and they’re available at most testing providers. (Público)
On a lighter note
A restaurant-school run to train and help employ homeless people has reopened its doors, Público reports. Forced to shut its doors when the coronavirus hit Portugal, É Um Restaurante (It’s a restaurant) closed to the public but continued to distribute food — as many as 600 boxes a day — to other homeless people, as other support organisations struggled to do so because of a lack of volunteers. Now, the space, near Avenida da Liberdade in Lisbon, has been spruced up and the menu has evolved slightly beyond the Portuguese share plates. You should be able to find wild boar feijoada, ray with turmeric sauce, prawn açorda with tomato and seaweed, and other dishes. A meal should set you back about €20.
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