Covid-19: WHO says pandemic situation in Portugal proves vaccines’ effectiveness | Covid-19
The World Health Organization considers, on Thursday, that the number of cases and deaths in Portugal demonstrate the effectiveness of vaccines against covid-19, but warned that immunization alone “is not enough to end the pandemic”.
“Portugal has a very high vaccination coverage and the number of cases is much lower than it was during this pandemic. The mortality rate is also very low, despite each of these deaths being tragic”, said the technical responsible of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the pandemic.
In a press conference, Maria Van Kerkhove highlighted that the main objective of vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus is to prevent serious cases of covid-19 and deaths, which is happening in countries with high rates of vaccination.
“The covid-19 vaccines being used are incredibly effective at preventing hospitalizations and the need for people to go to intensive care units and die. What we see in Portugal, as well as in many countries, is this happening. The data supports this. That’s good news,” said one epidemiologist.
Despite this, Maria Van Kerkhove warned that “vaccines alone are not enough to end the pandemic”, reiterating that the WHO continues to “strongly advise” the adoption of other measures, such as distancing, the use of masks and Indoor modules, as a way to prevent the spread of infections.
“We have several tools that are currently available, which can not only save lives, but also reduce the transmission” of the virus, assured the technical responsible for the WHO, who admitted that the number of infections in Europe increases with the arrival of winter.
“Europe has seen an increase in cases over the past five weeks and an increase in deaths over the past six weeks,” said Maria Van Kerkhove.
The Health Minister warned today of “a worsening” of the epidemiological situation of the covid-19 pandemic last week, adding that this scenario “was somehow expected” and follows the European situation.
“The epidemiological situation in the country over the last week has seen a worsening, this worsening accompanied which is the European situation”, said Marta Temido, at the press conference held after the Council of Ministers, where it was decided to extend the alert situation due to pandemic from covid-19 until 30 November.
The government official also said that the functions and analyzes of epidemiological modeling carried out by the National Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo Jorge point to 1,300 confirmed cases on November 7, if the real risk of transmission remains.
The minister explained that, in the last week, a cumulative increase to 14 days was situated at 94 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, despite being “an incidence that is below what is the average today registered in the countries of the European Union, which is 235 cases per 100,000 inhabitants”.
According to Marta Temido, this result has been increasing “in line with the risk of effective transmission, which is above one 16 days ago and which is now at 1.08”.