State of emergency renewed and expanded // We still haven’t reached the second wave peak, expert says
Portuguese news in English on November 20, 2020.
By the numbers
Fewer new cases were confirmed today than last Friday and deaths are the lowest we’ve seen in almost a week but pretty much everything else is bad news. Yesterday was the worst day ever for new cases (6994), and the number of covid-19 patients in intensive care has never been higher. I have added a by the numbers blockbuster edition further down (second story) for anyone who wants to get into more depth.
Source: DGS
State of emergency renewed for two weeks
The state of emergency has been renewed for another two weeks and significantly broadened, Público reports. The new emergency provisions don’t by themselves introduce stricter pandemic control measures but they open the door legally for the government to impose new rules that otherwise might not be possible. The three-level risk-restriction evaluation (my Wednesday newsletter) appears likely to be on the table when the Council of Ministers meets on Saturday to decide any further restrictions. But the state of emergency itself already explicitly foreshadows mandatory confinement for covid-19 patients and suspected patients and allows the government to order specific businesses or means of production to close or alter their opening hours.
Otherwise, the presidential decree indicates schools, commerce and services will continue to operate, with restrictions, Público reports. The new state of emergency runs from November 24 to December 8 and was approved by the ruling Socialist Party (PS), major opposition Social Democratic Party (PSD) and one independent MP, with the rest of the Parliament voting against or abstaining.
We still haven’t reached the second wave peak
The country’s top experts are meeting again fortnightly, which means we get a lot more data to take a look at. This is all from experts at Infarmed, as reported by Público. Epidemiologist Manuel Carmo Gomes says we still haven’t seen the worst of this wave, predicting daily cases will peak in the next two weeks but deaths will keep climbing for longer, possibly to 100 deaths a day near Christmas. Concerningly, four out of five new infections come from an unknown source, which the vice president of the opposition Democratic Socialist Party, Ricardo Baptista Leite, compared to sailing a boat in the dark without a compass. This casts some doubt on the government’s claim that 68% of new cases are occurring in a family context, which was used to justify the weekend curfew. It’s possible to say 68% of infections with a known source are occuring in family contexts but if we only know the source of one in five infections, we can only say with any certainty that 14% are occurring at family gatherings.
In slightly better news, admittedly with exactly the same qualifier, only 2% of infections with a known source have been traced back to restaurants. It’s also worth noting that the R(t) number (BBC explainer here in English), which tracks the pandemic’s spread, continues to fall and is now at 1.11 nationally. Again, that means the situation is still getting worse — with about 7000 daily confirmed cases expected from the end of this month into the next — just not as fast as it was. Even getting the R(t) down to 1 would still mean thousands of cases a day and a plateau that’s not easy to escape from, one expert said.
More than 450 outbreaks in schools
Another interesting bit of data to come out this week is that five of the 10 worst-affected councils have among the youngest populations in the country. Geographer Teresa Sá Marques tells público youth is only one factor amid several likely to affect the coronavirus’s spread in a particular area. The Directorate-General of Health has also shared new data about infections in schools, revealing 477 active outbreaks in schools, more than half of which are in the Lisbon and Tejo Valley region. Kids under the age of nine have seen the biggest increase in cases, up 66% from November 5, with those aged 10 to 19 experiencing almost as large of an increase (63%). In absolute terms, in the past two weeks, more infections (13,000) have been discovered in those aged 40-49, Público reports.
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In brief
Half of Portuguese people don’t consider the government's pandemic measures ‘adequate’. In March, the National School of Public Health study found only 25% thought the measures adopted were inadequate. (Público)
House prices will fall further, European Commission believes. Brussels warns of the risks to banking as the credit moratorium ends and advises banks to negotiate with customers now. (Diário de Notícias)
Big tourism businesses 'already in an especially fragile phase' With the sector "connected to the ventilator", Tourism Confederation of Portugal president Francisco Calheiros calls for financial assistance to arrive quickly. (Diário de Notícias)
The Portuguese Communist Party won't support the national budget 'at this moment' (Diário de Notícias with Lusa)
On a lighter note
One of Portugal's biggest pop bands is trying something really cool tonight. Plenty of bands have recorded concerts during the pandemic and some have even turned them into one-off view experiences. But the five-piece has taken things a step further by managing to have the performance screened simultaneously in more than 70 cinemas across the country tonight, Diário de Notícias reports. Personally, I don’t know that I’m ready to sit surrounded by random people in a cinema just yet but there are obviously people who are because some of the sessions have sold out. The band says this is much more than a filmed concert and the trailer below would seem to back that up. I know it’s pretty late notice but tickets are available here. Worst case, you have some new music to check out.
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