The Deputy Secretary of State and Health defended today that the new restrictions to combat the pandemic in the country will be territorial and more circumscribed, in a model that has yet to be stabilized.
Two days away from holding an extraordinary Council of Ministers (Saturday) to define measures to control the pandemic, the government official stated that "all countries will start to adopt restrictive measures at the territorial level, which are more limited."
«And these restrictions will certainly be at the level of the territories, so that other territories that are not so much under pressure can breathe from an economic and social point of view», admitted António Lacerda Sales in an interview with podcast Politics with Word of the Socialist Party.
Asked if the Government will opt for local actions or if it admits national restrictions as a new general confinement, Lacerda Sales said that "all the countries of Europe are currently trying to stabilize in a certain model that can include many variables".
Enumerating that these variables are the incidence of cases in the last 14 days, new confirmed cases per 100 inhabitants, the most affected age groups or the pressure on hospitals, he argued that what is needed is "to stabilize in a given model and obviously the more uniform this model manages to be (…) the greater security and greater confidence will be given to the populations».
Faced with whether this model will be based on the municipality or district, the secretary of state only said that it must have "the consensus of the vast majority of stakeholders" in the areas of health, civil protection, local authorities or social security.
On Wednesday, the president of the Metropolitan Area of Porto asked the Government to enact the State of Emergency, generalizing the measures across the country and the president of the District Civil Protection Commission of Porto proposed curfews in the district.
Faced with these requests, Lacerda Sales reiterated the need to «stabilize the model and standardize the model so that there are no major discrepancies, either between municipalities or between districts».
He asked, however, that "no overestimation of certain situations and, on the other hand, underestimation in other situations".
"I think that the measures have to adapt to what is in each region, the evolution and the epidemiological data", he summarized.
In addition to Saturday's extraordinary Council of Ministers, the prime minister scheduled meetings with the parties for Friday.
At the end of Wednesday, a note from the Cabinet of the Minister of State and the Presidency said that Mariana Vieira da Silva and the Minister of Health, Marta Temido, would hold a hearing with experts usually consulted at the so-called Infarmed meetings. of a meeting with specialists in infectious diseases and intensive care medicine.
Government source had previously told the agency Lusa that, given the evolution of the pandemic in Portugal in recent weeks, the Minister of Health, Marta Temido, and the Minister of State and the Presidency, Mariana Vieira da Silva, were already listening to a group epidemiologists.
The Minister of State for the Economy and Digital Transition, Pedro Siza Vieira, was listening to social partners.
Still within the scope of the fight against Covid-19, the prime minister will participate today in an extraordinary European Council, by videoconference.
On Wednesday, a new daily maximum of infection cases was reached in Portugal - 3.960 - and the number of people hospitalized has continued to rise for more than a week, with 1.794 people now, 47 more than on Tuesday, and of these 262 (nine more) are in Intensive Care Units.
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