Health minister. Lisbon, Tagus valley Covid-19 situation means restrictions to continue

The health minister said on Wednesday that the epidemiological situation of Covid-19 in the region of Lisbon and Tagus Valley should result in the continuation of restriction measures in place.

“The numbers at this moment lead to suggest that the situation in Lisbon is not yet overcome”, which leads to the fact that “specific measures have to be maintained, as they were maintained in other parts of the country when they were in a situation of special risk”, Marta Temido said in statements on the sidelines of the presentation of the Spring Report of the Portuguese Observatory of Health Systems (OPSS).

“We must be aware that we are dealing with a phenomenon whose evolution is still fraught with uncertainties. It is not possible to guarantee that the future will be this way or that way, what we can guarantee is that we will do everything so that this is not necessary. The numbers continue to increase, we are not yet at a point where we are seeing them decrease and, therefore, we have to be alert”, she said.

Stressing the importance of vaccination, testing and “some non-pharmacological measures”, the minister also reacted to criticism from German Chancellor Angela Merkel regarding the opening of Portugal to host the final of the Champions League and, consequently, thousands of English fans.

“Controlling the movement of people is one of the challenges we face. We are in a phase of fighting the pandemic where there is an increasing appetite to resume a normal life and that is a difficulty. If we knew everything we know today, could we have acted differently at certain times? Probably, yes, but it is not possible to rewrite history”, she said.

Marta Temido also repeated the idea that the country seeks to “gain some time through non-pharmacological measures”, such as the use of masks and distancing, to be able to vaccinate more people and appealed to the public to carry out tests regularly.