The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, will today award the National Health Service (SNS) with the highest national Honorary Order due to the acts and services provided, in particular during the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the official website of the Presidency of the Republic, this decoration of the SNS as an Honorary Member of the former Military Order of the Tower and Sword, of Valor, Loyalty and Merit will take place today, March 2nd, the day that marks the second anniversary of the first case of Covid-19 registered in Portugal.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa highlights the “exceptional acts and services provided, in particular during the pandemic to Portugal, the Portuguese and other citizens” by the SNS and the “abnegation and sacrifice” of its health professionals.
Covid-19 killed more than 21 thousand people in Portugal in two years, infected more than three million, and led to 35 million tests, and the administration of 22 million vaccines to almost nine million Portuguese.
In two years, Portugal had several days without registering deaths due to the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, but it also had 300 deaths in a single day.
With more or less infections or deaths, Portugal has gone through five waves of pandemic and has never had, in the last two years, a single day without infections by the new coronavirus.
Covid-19 has caused at least 5.952.685 deaths worldwide since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the latest report by the Agence France-Presse.
The respiratory disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, detected in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
The rapidly spreading and mutating Ómicron variant has become dominant in the world since it was first detected in November in South Africa.
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