Portugal’s former golden child status “shows very clearly how fragile virus situation is”, says EU health boss

The European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, underlined today that the pandemic situation in Europe is still “fragile”, giving the example of the evolution of COVID-19 in Portugal to maintain that it is necessary to remain vigilant.

“I think that the example of Portugal shows very clearly how fragile the situation is. And in regions more or less unreached so far, we are witnessing an increase in the number of cases”, said Kyriakides in an interview with the Diário de Notícias newspaper.

“No one can say how the next few weeks and months are going to unfold. We are certainly not where we were in January and February, when the cases first appeared. But we need to be vigilant and, when necessary, take measures to protect citizens,” added the official. In the same interview, Kyriakides stressed that the fight against the COVID-19 is not over yet.

“I think what we need to understand – which is what I have been saying since the beginning – is that as long as the virus is there, it will be circulating among us. (…) As citizens circulate, so does COVID-19”.

She insists: “We need to remain vigilant. We need to continue to distance ourselves, to do hand hygiene, because we have not yet overcome this. We are at a different stage in this pandemic. But we still haven’t got rid of it “.

This Friday, Portugal registered eight more deaths caused by COVID-19 than on Wednesday and 328 more infected, about 83% of which are in the Lisbon and Tejo Valley Region, the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) announced today.

According to DGS, the number of deaths related to COVID-19 amounts to 1,587, while confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic totalled 42,782.