There were 14 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among members of Formula 1 teams, who were in Portimão, for the Grand Prix of Portugal. The information was provided today by Ana Cristina Guerreiro, regional Health delegate, at the press conference to assess the epidemiological situation in the Algarve.
According to the official, the identified cases are all "foreigners, members of teams who came to work for Formula 1". All these people were left in isolation after testing positive.
Most of the cases were detected by the testing teams themselves "which were part of the event's contingency plan", installed at the Autodromo, but there were still "others who, due to symptoms, resorted to health services".
These infections, according to Ana Cristina Guerreiro, were detected between the 20th and 29th of October. In total, more than 3000 tests were carried out on the staff involved in the various Formula 1 bubbles.
For now, there are no known cases among the public of the event and the regional Health delegate says that, if that happens, «we have a way of knowing the close contacts during the race, because the organization was asked to identify the people in the seats on the bench. ».
Even so, admits Ana Cristina Guerreiro, «with the relocation of the public, from Saturday to Sunday, mainly in the stands of Portimão 1 and 2, it may not be possible».
This change of places was one of the situations that, for the responsible, «did not work very well. The plan was made with numbered tickets, but people tended to go up for better visibility. Then, the fact that it was necessary to relocate other people, created a concentration in some benches».
Another issue that went wrong is that “we found that the guards asked people to put on their masks well, but they were not very firm and demanding. There should have been more rigor'.
For the MotoGP event, which is scheduled for the weekend of 22 November, the regional health delegate believes that "this could be improved and corrected with closer vigilance".
Despite explaining that the technical opinion on the measures to be adopted for the MotoGP will not be hers, but the General Directorate of Health (DGS), Ana Cristina Guerreiro admits that, if necessary, «the audience limit can be reduced, the percentage of seats. There is, at all, no public, if the situation worsens a lot, it can also make sense”, he admitted.
A scenario that António Pina, president of AMAL – Algarve Intermunicipal Community – hopes will not happen. “Formula 1 and MotoGP are important for the economy. These events are anchors and we do it by trial and error. Only next week will it be possible to evaluate the transmission effect among the public. However, we need the economy to work. There were some mistakes and those lessons will have to be learned and corrected in the next one. We hope that MotoGP exists and with an audience».
About the images that circulated of the crowd of people during Formula 1, António Pina complained “about the angle” from which the photos were taken. «From the side it looked like something, but from the aerial images, you could see that it wasn't like that. It takes some care with how we communicate. Still, I cannot say that everything went well and there is a learning curve to be done», he considered.
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