Madeira upped to moderate risk on ECDC Covid-19 map
After having moved in mid-October to the green category, Madeira on Thursday moved back to orange, following mainland Portugal and the Azores.
Madeira has been placed in the moderate risk category for Covid-19 on the map of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which supports travel decisions in the European Union (EU), moving from green to orange.
After having moved in mid-October to the green category – relative to the best epidemiological situation on the ECDC map – Madeira on Thursday moved back to orange, following mainland Portugal and the Azores, which have remained so for some weeks.
The moderate risk category (orange) refers to places where the reporting rate of new infections is between 50 and 75 per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days and the test positivity rate is 1% or between 75 and 200 new infections per 100,000 inhabitants and the test positivity rate is 4% or more.
The ECDC map combines the reporting rates of Covid-19 cases in the last 14 days, the number of tests performed and the total number of positives, and is updated weekly on Thursday.
This map from the European agency follows a traffic light system on the spread of Covid-19 in the EU, starting from green (favourable situation), through orange, red and dark red (very dangerous situation).
It serves as an aid to member states on what restrictions to apply to travel within the EU.
Last February, and due to the high number of infections with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes Covid-19, Portugal was in the dark red category of the ECDC maps, used for areas where the virus circulates at very high levels.
In mid-June, the Council of the EU adopted a recommendation for a coordinated approach to travel, proposing that vaccinated and recovered Covid-19 patients should not be subjected to restrictive measures such as quarantines or testing.
Covid-19 has caused at least 5,003,717 deaths worldwide, among more than 247.03 million infections by the new coronavirus recorded since the start of the pandemic, according to the most recent assessment by Agence France-Presse.
In Portugal, since March 2020, 18,171 people have died and 1,091,592 cases of infection have been recorded, according to data from the Directorate-General of Health.
