Members of afpop, the association that provides support to foreign residents in Portugal, have been “responding excellently” to the self-isolation recommendations made by the Portuguese government, according to the association’s CEO Michael Reeve.
“The response from members has been excellent and they all seem to have heeded the advice and accepted the recommendations without any problem at all. Many members have, in fact, taken stronger measures themselves than those that have been recommended by the government, many of them self-isolating almost from the beginning,” Reeve told the Resident.
“The speed with which the coronavirus swept out of China caught everyone by surprise and the fact that it took some time to get to Portugal did give us some breathing space as we looked at what to tell our members.
“When the Portuguese government began releasing guidelines, we were fortunate to be included in many of the mailings that went out and were able to take the important points for members and use our ‘News from afpop’ e-mail service to update them.”
Most of afpop members’ questions have been about specific issues, such as “the need to travel for family reasons or when borders would be closing”.
“Most of the concerns really have been about misinformation that was being passed around as fact, such as the ban on travelling to other cities and what the situation is with pharmacies and medical centres,” Michael Reeve told us.
On a closing note, he said: “I’m pleased to say that our members appear to have understood the situation and there has been no alarm or panic in any of the requests we’ve had for information. People understand that there is a problem that needs their attention and they have quite calmly accepted their responsibility.”
By MICHAEL BRUXO
[email protected]
