Portugal is in the fifth phase of the covid-19 pandemic – News from Coimbra
Portugal is in the covid-19 pandemic phase and has an incidence of infections of 203 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, being higher in the young population.
“We had four major pandemic phases and Portugal is currently in the fifth pandemic phase, so far with a lower impact on severity and mortality than the previous phases, although they deserve some special attention”, said Pedro Pinto Leite, from DGS, at the assessment meeting on the situation of the pandemic in Portugal at the headquarters of Infarmed, in Lisbon.
According to him, a current increase is 203 cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the last 14 days per 100,000 inhabitants, with an increasing trend and a variation of over 47% compared to the same period last year.
According to the expert, the region with the highest incidence of infections is the Algarve, followed by the Center and Madeira, these three regions above 240 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
Already Lisbon and Vale do Tejo is with an increase “slightly lower than the national”, followed by Alentejo, North and Azores, but also with an increasing trend and with variations above 10%.
Pedro Pinto Leite added that the age group with the greatest increase in influence is children up to 9 years old, which corresponds to a group of the unvaccinated population.
The group aged 20 to 29 years is the second with the highest processing of cases of infection, followed by a group aged 30 to 39 years.
No meeting between specialists from various areas of Health and politicians, Pedro Pinto Leite said that there was an increase in the proportion of positivity, which is above the ECDC reference value of 4%.
He also referred that there is an increase in the number of hospitalizations, with 523 patients hospitalized on Thursday, which represents an increase of 37% compared to the same period last year, of which 72 are in intensive care, which corresponds to 28% of the level set of occupied beds defined in the pandemic risk analysis.
According to him, most cases associated with outbreaks in the various regions are in the context of schools and universities, but there are also hypotheses in the work context, in private institutions of social solidarity and in homes for the elderly.
Pedro Pinto Leite also said that, for cases reported in August, the risk of hospitalization for vaccination status is two to five times lower in people with full vaccination.
The lethality rate for cases reported in October is 1.4 to four times lower in people with full vaccinations compared to people who did not complete their vaccinations.