Nin the ECDC weekly update released today, mainland Portugal, Madeira and the Azores appear in the worst category of the ‘traffic light’ system, which indicates a very high risk, referring to regions where the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes covid-19, has great spread.

Last week, the Azores were classified in the orange level.

On the ECDC map on travel in the European Union, only Romania (orange) is an exception to red and dark red, even a part of the country identified in green, being the country with the lowest rate of notifications.

The colors on the ECDC map represent a combination of covid-19 case reporting rates in the last 14 days, number of tests performed, and total positives.

Covid-19 has caused more than 5.41 million deaths worldwide since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest report by Agence France-Presse.

In Portugal, since March 2020, 18,921 people have died and 1,330,158 cases of infection have been recorded, according to data from the Directorate-General for Health.

The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, detected in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in several countries.

A new variant, an Omicron, considered worrisome and highly contagious by the World Health Organization (WHO), has been detected in southern Africa, but since the South African health authorities raised the alert on 24 November, infections in hairs have been reported. 110 countries less, being dominant in Portugal.

Also Read: Portugal and beyond. Yesterday was record day for new cases in Europe