Five days into Portugal’s slow deconfinement and everything nationally is going ‘well’ – though some regions are doing better than others.
According to the report published yesterday by INSA (the national health institute Dr Ricardo Jorge), the Algarve and the north are the places where numbers are ticking all the right boxes.
Presenting the risk matrix which has become the compass that promises to guide the country through the pandemic, prime minister António Costa stressed that the objective is for Portugal to present an incidence of Covid-19 below 60 cases per 100,000 over 14-days, and an Rt (transmission) rate of under 1.
On that basis, the country as a whole is at 75.7 cases per 100,000, with an Rt rate of 0.84.
The Algarve and north are doing better however when it comes to the 14-day incidence average. The north has the lowest incidence of Covid-19 on the mainland (58.6 cases in 100,000), while the Algarve is at 60 cases per 100,000 (in other words, just on the line of the government’s ‘ideal objective’).
Lisbon and Vale to Tejo however are way above this: the incidence rate there is at 94.7 cases per 100,000. The Rt is still under 1 (at 0.81), but the incidence rate will be concerning authorities.
The centre too is registering an incidence rate of around 75.2 cases per 100,000 (Rt rate is 0.86); the Alentejo 70.7 cases per 100,000 (Rt rate 0.82).
The archipelagos of Madeira and Azores are a bit more complicated in that Madeira doesn’t seem able to get its figures in ‘on time’ – and thus has been left out of this latest report – and the Azores, albeit with a low incidence rate (of just 52.7 cases per 100,000) has an Rt rate of over 1.
All this data will have to be carefully assessed before the next step of the deconfinement process gets underway on April 5.
As has been intimated, it could be that ‘step 2’ sees regions moving forwards in different ways (click here).
