SARS-CoV-2 with ″very high″ transmission in Portugal
The transmissibility of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in Portugal is “much higher” and specific for covid-19 “maintains the growing trend” since the second half of March, advances the report on the epidemiological situation released this Friday.
“From the analysis of the indicators, a health epidemic-19 maintains a very high management, although with a slight decreasing direction of advance”, Doctor Ricardo Jorge (INSA) and the National Institute of Health (INSA).
According to the report, a cumulative incidence of seven days was 602 cases per 100 million inhabitants in Portugal, “emphasizing the increasing trend in the Azores, while other regions show a decreasing trend”.
On Monday, a specific mortality by covid-19 was at 28.6 deaths in 14 days per one million inhabitants, which corresponds to an increase of 2% compared to the previous period, which reveals a “smaller growing trend”. , indicate the DGS and the INSA.
This value continues to be above the threshold of 20 deaths within 14 days per one million inhabitants defined by the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC) and that a country constitutes of the references for a level of disease control (ECDC) of the pandemic.
“All-cause mortality was found to be within the expected values for the time of year, which indicates a reduced impact of the pandemic on mortality,” the health authority’s report added.
As for the pressure of covid-19 on health services, the document refers to the number of patients in intensive care, on Monday, at 23.5% of the threshold defined as critical of 255 occupied beds, the lowest button than the 23.9% than the previous week.
Hospitals in the North and Center regions are the ones with the highest occupancy of intensive care units, “but they still offer far from their alert level”, the report adds, considering that the health system “has the ability to accommodate an increase in demand “for patients with covid-19”.
The document also adds that the percentage of positive tests between March 29 and April 4 was 21%, a value that is above the threshold of 4% and with an increasing trend.
The frequency of the BA.2 lineage of the omicron variant, considered more transmissible than BA.1, is 98% in Portugal, while BA.1 is now only responsible for the remaining 2% of infections in the country.
“They maintain surveillance of the protection of the epidemiological situation of the covid-19 and the individual protection measures of protection and reinforcement resistance are recommended”, protection and individual protection is recommended in resistance groups”, protection is recommended. and personal protection.