On Monday morning, the Portimão Chamber announced that the Covid-19 tests of faculty and staff from the secondary schools that resumed activity that day had come back negative. However, after several comments from members of the educational community assuring that they had not taken the test, the municipality clarified that these tests were only given to workers from the Secondary Schools of Bemposta and Poeta António Aleixo and not those of the Secondary School Manuel Teixeira Gomes.
A situation that led to strong criticism by the PSD, which speaks of a "serious error" and laments the "priority" of the executive council PS "in giving totally wrong information at 8:29 am, with change only at 20:00 pm this Monday, after dissatisfaction dozens of professors and staff».
The Social Democrats expressed "strangeness and concern" at the lack of rigor in the information provided by the Chamber and at the fact that "dozens of citizens from the school community had the need to go public and warn that the information was wrong and that not all had been tested for Covid-19».
A situation that, according to the Portimão City Council, is due to a delay by the direction of the Manuel Teixeira Gomes Secondary School - where there were confirmed cases of Covid-19 -, which did not send the list of teachers and staff to be tested in time.
According to a clarification made on the social network Facebook, in an addition to the original post on negative Covid-19 tests, the municipality begins by explaining that, on the 12th, it asked all secondary schools in the municipality to deliver by 13:00 on May 14th «the list of employees and teachers who intended to test Covid-19, given the availability of the Portimão municipality to bear the financial burden of the tests».
The delivery period was eventually extended until midnight on the 14th, with «all the staff and teachers, whose names and contacts were available» until that moment, having carried out tests «on time».
"In this sense, all the employees and teachers of Escola da Bemposta and Poet António Aleixo took the tests and were aware of the results of the tests before the resumption of classes", assured the Chamber.
«Unfortunately, this was not the case for the employees and teachers of the Manuel Teixeira Gomes Secondary School, whose listings were only provided to us by the school's management on the afternoon of Friday, May 15, 24 hours after the date set as the deadline. », assured the Chamber of Portimão.
Thus, «as was opportunely communicated to the Group's management, the teachers and staff of ESMTG who were willing to take the test were contacted since 8:00 am today [Monday] to schedule the test, maintaining the intention of the Chamber in ensuring this initiative at the local level».
This justification did not appease the opposition, namely Carlos Gouveia Martins, the president of the PSD/Portimão.
"First, the municipality should be sure how many people from Portimo in the school community have tested and, even before, it should mention what type of test it has acquired, because there are several laboratory tests and we do not know if we are facing an immunological test or another type of test. diagnosis for Covid-19 disease. But it is clear that the concern was only for appearance», considered the party leader.
“It is commendable that the municipality wants to test, regardless of the type of test, the community, to acquire an essential tool for epidemiological studies and to know what immunity pattern we have in Portimão. But, on the other hand, it is regrettable that something so serious is used to convey an image that after all does not exist, as evidenced by the many words of people from Portimo who, in theory, had been tested and had not been”, added Carlos Gouveia Martins.
The president of the PSD/Portimão promised that he will question the executive «seriously» this Wednesday and «ask for clarification, because it is a matter that cannot be misrepresented. Above all, we hope that the Municipality will return to the path of seriousness that it used to take and first think about the measures and then about newspaper covers or buzzwords for social networks».
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