With 67 deaths in the last 24-hours and 1,940 new cases, Portugal is returning to the kind of daily results witnessed before the country was engulfed by the ‘third wave’ of the virus at the end of December.
Today’s figures have seen another sharp fall in the number of people interned in hospitals. Indeed the last four days have seen over 1,248 people ‘leaving hospital’, of which 410 died.
Numbers in Covid wards now are down to 3,584, with 669 people in ICUs (19 less than 24-hours previously).
Today’s bulletin also sees another 4,404 people deemed to have recovered from active Covid-19 infections. In other words, new infections are well behind the rate of recoveries.
For a change, there has been news of the ages of people who died in the last 24-hours: 39 were over the age of 80; 17 over the age of 70 and 25 over the age of 60. One death was registered in a patient aged 50-59. No information however has been forthcoming on any underlying illnesses these people may have been suffering from.
In terms of new infections, Lisbon/ Vale do Tejo is still leading the field with +975 (38 deaths), followed by the north with +403 new infections (10 deaths), the centre with +287 new infections (13 deaths), the Algarve with +75 infections (2 deaths) and the Alentejo with just +49 infections (4 deaths).
Madeira continues to suffer from an elevated number of new infections (+140) but hasn’t suffered any new fatalities; and the Azores remains the ‘poster child’ of Portugal’s epidemic with only +11 new infections, no deaths.
But in spite of the ‘good news’, all indications from the government are that it is still “too soon to talk about deconfinement”.
It seems to be accepted now that Portugal’s lockdown won’t be lifted until after Easter.
As to the spread of variants, the British (Kent) variant is now described as accounting for almost half of Portugal’s new infections.
