PM and President talk potential for state of emergency // Worries ‘message not getting through’ after superspreader events
Portuguese news in English on October 19, 2020
Before I get to the depressing numbers, I’d like to share a happy one. I sent my 100th newsletter last week! Thank you once again to everyone who has been reading, sharing, subscribing and donating. The support is amazing and heavily appreciated. Things appear to be getting pretty serious so please keep sharing this around anywhere you see people who need some help keeping across the latest.
By the numbers
Well we’ve passed 100,000 confirmed cases and the 2200th covid-19 patient is likely to die some time tonight or tomorrow. As you can see from the chart below, the second wave is starting to make the first wave look pretty small in terms of cases numbers (bearing in mind the lower level of testing early on), but fortunately daily deaths haven’t yet reached the 30s as they did for most of April. Unfortunately hospitalisations and transfers to intensive care have really shot up in the past few days. The North remains the clear focal point, followed by Lisbon and the Tejo Valley, but the Centre has been recording 100–300 cases for the past few days.
Graphic translation: Active, recovered, deaths, contacts under surveillance, confirmed, hospitalised, in ICU. (Yes, confirmed is at the bottom of the left column for some reason)
PM and President talk state of emergency
The big question on your mind is probably what comes next? Rapid improvements? More restrictions? A return to a state of emergency? I can’t give you any answers there but it’s something President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Prime Minister António Costa have also had on their minds, unsurprisingly. Late Friday night, Expresso published an interview with the president in which he said the subject had come up in conversations between the pair. Earlier in the day, the president publicly warned he would declare a state of emergency, and even a lockdown, if the situation worsened significantly, Público reported. One “red line” would be if dozens of people were dying every day, he said, adding that measures would be decided taken progressively, by degrees.
Click here for interactive version.
Doctor worries ‘message not getting through’ after superspreader events
A public health doctor has warned of the need to take the pandemic seriously after several big celebrations spawned major outbreaks with dozens of infections in recent days. Díario de Notícias reports 80 people are infected and more than 150 in isolation after 73 people attended a wedding vow renewal ceremony in the Lisbon and Tejo Valley region. Family events like weddings and baptisms were later reduced to 50 people when the declared state of “calamity” cut other public gatherings to five people. "The message is not getting through,” an unidentified public health doctor associated with the case said. “People think that schools have opened, that they have returned to work and that life has returned to normal. It has not. And if we continue with these behaviors, there is no way to control the situation.” In another case, a woman welcomed 12 different people, in a few different groups, to her house to wish her happy birthday and all 12 were infected. Separately, a dinner with five friends in the Algarve at the end of September eventually spread the infection to 45 people, with another 150 in isolation.
In the north at least three parties among Erasmus (exchange) students have been blamed for major outbreaks in Porto and Aveiro, Público reports. Of the almost 500 university students infected with coronavirus, more than 70% attend the University of Porto, Polytechnic Institute of Porto or University of Aveiro and almost 200 are Erasmus students.
Positive test rate on the rise
The rate of positive tests has been rising since September but still hasn’t reached the figure of 9% recorded in April, Diário de Notícias reports. I think I’ve linked to this before but the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health explains the higher the positivity rate, the more likely it is many infected people have not been tested, with anything above 5% considered “too high”. According to DN’s calculations, that rate is currently 6.4% in Portugal, much worse than the 1.3% we reached during September but not as bad as the 9% recorded in April. Portugal is no longer a world leader in terms of testing but remains seventh in the EU for tests per 100,000, behind the likes of the UK (hugely improved from the first wave), Russia, Belgium, Spain and several tiny countries. Despite the other increases, the death rate — which has a lot to do with testing numbers as well — continues to fall, now down to 2.18% for the general population but still at 12.2% for those over 70.
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In brief
Demand is expected to increase, but ‘no shortage of flu vaccines’ for those who should take them Although there are concerns about supply, the Portuguese Association of General Practice and Family Medicine says the process is actually starting earlier than usual to meet demand, with vaccinations ideally taking place in November. The program will run until the end of December. (Público)
Orange alert for heavy rain in 13/18 districts thanks to Storm Barbara. Heavy wind is also expected, with gusts up to 100km/h. (Lusa)
Social Democrats (PSD) expected to reject draft budget. The decision would leave the ruling Socialist Party (PS) to negotiate with parties on the left. (Diário de Notícias)
Algarve Formula 1 grand prix will have less spectators than predicted. Health authorities are yet to make a final decision but the limit is expected to drop to 27,500 fans, with tickets to be refunded. (Público)
Slovakian government wants to test the entire country in a few days. The country of 5.5 million recorded 9394 cases in the past week. (Jornal Económico, in badly translated English)
Belgium facing 'tsunami' of Covid infections, health minister says. (The Guardian, in English) He said the country, with a population similar to Portugal, was facing the “most dangerous” situation in Europe, after averaging 7876 infections a day from October 7-15.
Italian Prime Minister Conte announces more restrictions as confirmed cases surge. Authorities recorded about 10,000 cases a day over the weekend, more than the worst days of the first wave, when testing was extremely limited. (CNBC, in English)
On a lighter note
Lisbon’s oldest cake shop is 190 years old, which I’m sure you’ll agree is a ridiculously impressive age. The Directorate-General for Cultural Heritage certainly does, if its recent Heritage listing of Confeitaria Nacional, reported by Público, is anything to go by. The confeitaria opened in 1829 in the middle of a civil war and quickly became popular among Lisbon’s elites. Rumours circled last year of its closure but were quickly put to bed by one of the owners. Confeitaria Nacional is widely known for its Bolo Rei, which is easily one of Portugal’s worst cakes but still has to be eaten every year at Christmas.
Photo: Daniela Sunde-Brown