State of Emergency renewed until March 1st
The State of Emergency has been renewed for another 15 days, to take effect at midnight on 15 February until 11:59 p.m. on 1 March. The Government will maintain the confinement measures and warned of the need to extend them during the month of March, given the "extremely serious" situation that the country is still experiencing.
As he left the Council of Ministers, Prime Minister António Costa referred to the good results achieved with the confinement in the last two weeks, with a significant decrease in new cases of COVID-19 and the risk of transmission at 0.77, the lowest since the beginning of the pandemic in Portugal.
Despite the downward trajectory, he stressed that the level of hospitalisation, especially in intensive care, and the number of daily deaths remain "unacceptable", calling for continued effort from the population to stop the pandemic.
Fewer vaccines and new variants
António Costa also warned about two new risks to be taken into account. The first is related to the reduction in the number of vaccines available in the first quarter. Of the 4.4 million doses planned for Portugal in the contract between the pharmaceutical companies and the European Union, only 1.98 million will arrive. The reasons are related to a delay in the production of the vaccine against COVID-19.
The second risk has to do with the multiplication of new variants of the virus, such as the British variant, which has a prevalence of 43% in new cases in Portugal.
See the measures approved in the course of this second confinement:
Measures in force since 31 January.
Measures in force since 22 January.
Measures in force since 20 January.
