00:00 Portugal has the highest number of coronavirus cases
in relation to its population - and a sharp rise in new infections has prompted
several European countries to offer help. Germany is sending doctors, nurses,
ventilators and hospital beds on a military plane, due to land in the next
hour. Portugal's ambassador says the country will be "forever
grateful" for the aid. Portugal has reported close to half of all of its
COVID-19 deaths in the last month.
Israel has vaccinated a greater percentage of its people
than any other country. But the number of new infections is still high and the
cabinet is set to convene today to decide whether to extend the lockdown.
Authorities say they're determined to contain the spread of the disease while
immunizing as many people as possible. As DW's Tania Krämer reports, senior
citizens are among those suffering most from the pandemic.
How Portugal became Europe’s coronavirus
blackspot
Portugal has gone from escaping the worst of the
pandemic to asking for international help.
BY PAUL
AMES
February 1,
2021 4:03 pm
https://www.politico.eu/article/portugal-coronavirus-rate-surge/
LISBON —
Like the rest of the world, Portugal was keen to bid good riddance to 2020.
National TV
broadcast a million-euro firework display live from Madeira on New Year's Eve,
with spectacular pyrotechnics lighting up the island’s sub-tropical waters.
“People
need some joy in the middle of all this,” said the island’s premier Miguel
Albuquerque. “These fireworks are a sign of hope for the coming year — we need
to have some hope.”
Any such
sentiments were short-lived.
Portugal’s
COVID-19 infection rate started to soar on January 2, and quickly raced to the
top of world infection and death rate rankings. Since New Year’s Eve, Portugal
has recorded 5,510 coronavirus deaths — compared with 6,972 in the whole of 2020.
The number
of active cases rose 242 percent during January to 181,623, almost 1.8 percent
of the total population.
Hospitals
are overflowing. There were reports of patients waiting up to 12 hours in
ambulances lined up outside emergency wards. Intensive care wards are close to
saturation. Patients in ICUs reached a new record of 850 on Sunday.
“We’ve
lived through very difficult moments, but nothing compared to this,” nurse
Mário André Macedo posted on Twitter. “Even so, we are managing to save many,
many lives.”
The
government has now appealed for international help.
On Sunday,
Austria agreed to take Portuguese intensive-care patients. This week, Germany
is set to airlift military medics, paramedics and equipment to relieve
Portugal’s beleaguered doctors and nurses.
On Friday,
Portugal’s air force flew three people critically ill with COVID from Lisbon to
Madeira, where there are more hospital beds.
The sudden
surge has stunned a country that won international plaudits for the way it
escaped the worst ravages of the pandemic’s first wave.
“In the
first phase we were horrified by the images from Spain and Italy, right now the
situation is reversed,” said political commentator Luís Marques Mendes.
“Unfortunately,
now the images we are seeing reflect the dramatic situation in our own
hospitals,” he told SIC TV Sunday. “If you compare the figures with Spain or
Germany or the EU average, the difference is colossal.”
A Christmas
relaxation of social-distancing rules and the arrival of the fast-spreading
“English” virus strain are blamed for the Portugal’s vertiginous infection
rates.
Comforted
by declining infections in early December, the government announced it would
“save Christmas.”
Prime
Minister António Costa urged caution but said the state should “not meddle”
with family life by ruling how many people should sit around Christmas dinner
tables.
Six days
before Christmas, the British government announced a more infectious
coronavirus mutation had gripped southeast England.
Like other
countries, Portugal immediately threw up restrictions, limiting flights from
the U.K. to Portuguese residents and citizens with proof of negative COVID-19
tests.
The English
strain, however, had already reached Portugal.
The country
is a popular winter destination for British tourists, and despite restrictions,
pre-holiday exchanges continued among the 170,000 Portuguese living in the U.K.
and 35,000 Brits resident in Portugal.
Last week,
50 percent of COVID-19 cases in the Lisbon area and a third of cases nationwide
were from the English variant, health authorities estimate.
Costa
re-imposed a nationwide lockdown on January 13 and tightened it a week later by
shutting schools. Strict frontier controls were introduced at the weekend,
banning most foreign travel. Flights to and from Brazil have been halted in an
effort to prevent the import of another highly contagious variant.
There are
tentative signs the measures may be having an impact.
The number
of new infections dropped for three days in a row since a peak of 16,432 on
Thursday; the weekly average has also started to dip for the first time since
late December, and the critical R number showing the rate of infections has
also declined.
It’s
unclear if these hopeful signs can be maintained, and when they will start to
impact hospitalization and mortality rates.
Portugal’s
newly re-elected president is warning citizens to prepare for the long haul,
despite the EU’s sixth-fastest vaccine roll out.
“What we
all do through to March will determine how things will be in the spring, the
summer, and who knows, the autumn.”
This
article is part of POLITICO’s premium policy service: Pro Health Care. From
drug pricing, EMA, vaccines, pharma and more, our specialized journalists keep
you on top of the topics driving the health care policy agenda. Email
pro@politico.eu for a complimentary trial.
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