Deconfinement: Albufeira and Loulé retreat, Lagos on alert

At the end of the meeting of the Council of Ministers yesterday, the Government announced the changes to be made in the country after updating the data on the Covid-19 pandemic.

There are two councils in the Algarve, out of a total of ten, that retreat into confinement: Albufeira, Arruda dos Vinhos, Braga, Cascais, Lisbon, Loulé, Odemira, Sertã, Sintra. 
Measures such as the closing of restaurants at 10.30 pm are to return.

There is also the municipality of Sesimbra, which will have stricter rules: restaurants and establishments will close at 3:30 pm on weekends.

Twenty municipalities have 120 cases per 100,000 inhabitants or 240 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. They are: Alcochete, Águeda, Almada, Amadora, Barreiro, Grândola, Lagos, Loures, Mafra, Moita, Montijo, Odivelas, Oeiras, Palmela, Sardoal, Seixal, Setúbal, Sines, Sobral de Monte Agraço and Vila Franca de Xira.

Alcanena, Paredes de Coura, Santarém and Vale de Cambra are the four municipalities to recover, “despite the deterioration at national level”.

The Government have decided to resume the ban on circulation to and from the Lisbon Metropolitan Area too, during the weekend from 15:00 on Friday.

Regarding circulation restrictions in Lisbon, Mariana Vieira da Silva confirms that they apply from 3 pm tomorrow with the purpose that the “high incidence of the pandemic does not pass outside the AML”.

Mariana Vieira da Silva says that the “prevalence of the Delta variant” may explain the high values ??of Covid-19 in Lisbon and Vale do Tejo.

Regarding the tests for holding events, the minister considers them an “essential instrument to control the pandemic”.

The situation is “more worrying throughout the country”, with the transmissibility index – the R(t) – “already clearly above 1”, said Minister Mariana Vieira da Silva.

Mariana Vieira da Silva says that the country is between yellow and red in the risk matrix, with conditions not suitable to evolve within the deconfinement plan at this time.

Next week, when a new phase of deconfinement was expected, “we are not in a position to move forward”, says the government official, stressing that the ban on circulation to and from the AML at the weekend is not a new rule.

He also admitted that the measure will not contribute to reducing the number of infections in the region, being another “protection measure” for the rest of the country, so as not to “extend the phenomenon in Lisbon” to other regions.

Original article available in Portuguese at http://postal.pt/