Covid-19 in Portugal. It’s been three months since there have been so many hospitalized
The epidemiological bulletin of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) indicates that Portugal registered, in the last 24 hours, 3364 new cases of covid-19. The report Saturday (November 27) also notes that 12 more people died from SARS-CoV-2 infection.
For the fourth consecutive day, the number of new cases surpasses the 3000 barrier.
Data on the situation show us that there are now 708 (more 3 than yesterday) hospitalized, a figure that has not been reached since last August 30, when there were 705 admissions.
There are currently 104 patients in intensive care (4 more than yesterday).
With this new update, Portugal currently has 809 active cases of the disease.
The age groups over 70 years are those with a lower incidence of cases (they are also those with a vaccination rate close to 100%). From 20 to 50 years old are the most infected people.
Of the 12 deaths, 5 occurred in Lisbon and Vale do Tejo, 3 in the North, 2 in Alentejo, one in the Center and another in the Algarve. Most of the new cases registered in the Lisbon region (1159), followed by the North zone (944) and the Center (720).
In Portugal, since March 2020, 18 405 people have died and 51 689 cases of infection have been recorded, according to data from the General Directorate of Health.
There are a further 2 985 people under surveillance on this day and 2 543 people have recovered from the disease (1 069 716 since the start of the pandemic).
Growing incidence
A covid-19 infection coup in Portugal hit a 14-day cumulative rate of 298 cases per 100,000 population, with a “strongly rising trend nationwide,” according to official data released on Friday.
According to the monitoring report of the “red lines” of the pandemic, by the General Directorate of Health (DGS) and by the Ricardo Jorge Institute (INSA), the number of admissions to Intensive Care Units (ICU) on the continent also revealed a “strongly increasing trend”.
The UCIs currently register an occupancy rate of 40% of the defined critical value of 255 beds, when last week the occupancy of beds in intensive care was at 28%.
As for the transmissibility index (Rt), the report also reports an increasing trend in the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections at the national level (1.19) and in all regions.
Maintaining this growth rate, at a national level, it is estimated that the threshold of 480 cases in 14 days per 100,000 inhabitants can be exceeded in less than 15 days, he alerts.
In line with these data, the covid-19-specific mortality (15.5 deaths in 14 days per 1,000,000 population) also shows an increasing trend, although this mortality rate reveals “a moderate impact of the pandemic on mortality”.
In the age group 65 years or older, the number of new cases of infection per 100,000 inhabitants, accumulated in the last 14 days, was 211 cases, a figure that is expected to increase.
Nationally, the proportion of positive tests was 4.7% (the previous week was 4.3%), above the defined limit of 4%, the report indicates, elevated to an increase in the number of tests performed in the last seven days.
Omicron. Cases under investigation in Portugal
Meanwhile, the director-general of Health, Graça Freitas, admitted this Saturday that cases of the new variant of the virus that causes covid-19 are being investigated, in people who traveled from southern Africa, but she refused to be “suspicious cases”.
“Right now there are cases under investigation. It cannot be said that they are suspected cases. These are cases that are being investigated,” she said when questioned by the Lusa agency at the end of a visit to the Covid-19 Vaccination Center in São Domingos de Rana , Cascais.
These cases refer to Lisbon, but according to Graça Freitas, “at any moment an alert could arise in any region of the country”.
The new variant of SARS-CoV-2 has the world in an uproar within 24 hours. It has already been identified by WHO as “worrying”. It is known that it was detected on 9 November in South Africa and has already reached Botswana, Hong Kong and Belgium, but it may be in more countries. The EU banned flights from seven African countries to EU space.
As soon as it dissipated, South African experts expressed concern about its transmissibility and resistance to vaccines and 24 hours later the WHO did not hesitate to label it as “worrying”, based on preliminary evidence that it was “at increased risk”. of reinfection “compared to other existing variants such as Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.
Just yesterday, the 27 member states of the EU also agreed to apply the emergency brake, imposing a suspension of flights from seven southern African countries to the community space, namely Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Swatini, Namibia and Zimbabwe .
Portugal, for the time being, has announced a suspension of flights to Mozambique from 00:00 on Monday, November 29, according to the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI), further imposing a quarantine on passengers from a number of African countries .
