Covid-19: Portugal looks set to transition from pandemic to endemic status

The covid situation in Portugal has dropped from a critical level to an alert level in the pandemic assessment indicator of the Instituto Superior Técnico and the Ordem dos Médicos, meaning less pressure on health services and the potential transition from pandemic to endemic.

According to the latest data from the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), the indicator that assesses the risk of the pandemic for health services is now at 79.59, already below the threshold of the alert level set at 80 points.

“The forecast is for this indicator to decline very sharply in the coming days,” said mathematician Henrique Oliveira, one of those responsible for the preparation and daily update of this indicator of the covid-19 pandemic

The epidemiological situation is “very favourable and the paradigm has changed”, said the IST professor, for whom “now the measures no longer limit the growth and decrease of cases”, since the number of infections will decrease across the country, reaching “saturation” – people who have already been infected or are vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

This pandemic assessment indicator is composed of five parameters – new cases, deaths, hospitalised in wards and intensive care, transmissibility index (Rt) and incidence of infections – which make up a scale that has thresholds of 80 points for the alert level and the 100 points of the critical level.

As of 21st January 2022, the pandemic assessment indicator reached a value above 100 points (critical level), having reached a maximum of 105.8 in the pandemic second wave in Portugal on 24th January 2022, the first taking place between the end of October 2020 and February 2021. When the assessment exceeds 100 points, the “National Health Service has to allocate more resources and begins to have to move patients who do not have covid-19 to the background. There are many treatments that have been postponed”, explained Henrique Oliveira.

Since the the end of January, the value of the indicator has been decreasing, reflecting the reduction in the number of cases, the incidence and the transmissibility index (Rt) of the coronavirus, now reaching a level of 79.59.

The President of the Republic has said in a recent statement that there has been “a progressive and sustained decrease in the number of cases” and also “a decrease in the number of hospitalisations, namely in intensive care, and in the number of deaths”.

Wednesday’s meeting at Infarmed is likely to bring announcements regarding the “reduction of restrictions” which “represents a new phase in terms of the transition from the pandemic to endemic”.