We’ve passed peak of new infections, model finds // Vaccine plan head resigns
Portuguese news in English on February 5, 2021.
By the numbers
We haven’t been able to maintain the relatively low case numbers from early in the week but things are still looking a lot more positive than the previous week. There were 9000 cases on Wednesday but yesterday’s almost 8000 new cases were half as many as the previous Thursday. Hopefully that trend can continue. Active cases (the number of people with the disease who are yet to recover or pass away) have dropped 20,000 since the start of February, Diário de Notícias reports. Even with slight decreases in recent days, intensive care units remain overloaded and Health Minister Marta Temido worries the number of covid-19 patients in ICU could still reach 1000.
We’ve passed peak of new infections, model finds
Modelling from Dashboard COVID-19 Insights, reported by Diário de Notícias, seems to back up what we’ve been seeing for the past couple of days: infections have peaked. The peak seems to have been about January 28, with a staggering seven-day average of 12,800 cases per day. It’s roughly in line with what the platform/experts behind the platform predicted in the middle of January. Ms Temido said the reduction was due to a “significant effort” to follow the latest restrictions but warned of more “difficult weeks” ahead. The European Centre for Disease Control’s latest weekly report highlights Portugal’s place as the region’s worst-affected country (per capita) for the second week in a row, Público reports.
Vaccine plan head resigns
The coordinator of Portugal’s national vaccination plan has resigned due to “irregularities” in the process for selecting health professionals for vaccination at the Red Cross Hospital, Público reports. The hospital’s clinical director and nursing director also resigned. A hospital source told the newspaper the pair had been responsible for developing the list of people to vaccinate, which included some workers, mostly doctors, who had been away from the hospital for some time but would still have received their first dose before some frontline nurses. Prime Minister António Costa said the incident had nothing to do with Mr Ramos’ work running the national plan, which he said was running successfully, Lusa reported. Director-General of Health Graça Freitas did not want to comment on the resignation but paid tribute to Mr Ramos’ career and said the vaccination process was generally running well. You can see the latest vaccination figures for Portugal and around the world here, thanks to Público.
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In brief
SEF trial: Security guard says he heard Homeniuk yelling for 10-15 minutes while in room with accused. The security guard said she also heard the Ukrainian yelling while two security guards were in the room earlier, but for less time, and while he was by himself. (Diário de Notícias)
A mental health crisis is already underway. Ignoring it would be a 'catastrophic' error. Psychiatrist Vítor Cotovio says the country won’t be rescued from the crisis unless it addresses mental health problems now. (Público)
Learning from home only works for wealthy children, researchers argue. The Nova School of Business and Economics experts found a quarter of children live in houses with leaky roofs, rotting window frames or floors and say online learning will worsen the “already gigantic inequality gap”. (Público)
On a lighter note
Here’s one for the “things to look forward to once lockdown is over” list. I’m not sure why New in Town is highlighting it as the “perfect village to get to know in spring” but Dornes, in the Santarém district, looks beautiful and is about two hours from both Lisbon and Porto. It sits on the Zêzere River on what is sometimes called the “enchanted peninsula” and offers hikes, boat rides, a river beach and a Templar building, so it seems likely to tick a lot of boxes. Also, follow this guy on Instagram if you’re into incredible pictures of Portugal.
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