COVID-19 | Weekly Update
October 29, 2021
Friday, October 29th | COVID-19 Daily Update
Data revealed by the DGS indicate that, in the last 24 hours, 844 new cases of infection and four deaths associated with COVID-19 were registered in Portugal. According to today’s epidemiological bulletin, there are now 1,088,977 confirmed cases and 18,153 deaths since the pandemic’s start. Regarding recovered patients, a further 755 were counted, increasing the total number to 1,039,284.
THE PANDEMIC IN PORTUGAL
The Health Minister said yesterday that the pandemic situation is “stable” in Portugal but warned of “some signs of concern” and “worrying contextual factors”. “We are growing,” she admitted. Marta Temido also revealed that, according to a forecast by the Doctor Ricardo Jorge Health Institute, the country should register 1,300 cases on 7 November. This, she underlined, if the R(t) remains at 1.08.
By the way, the WHO considered yesterday that the number of cases and deaths in Portugal demonstrates the effectiveness of vaccines against COVID-19, but warned that immunization alone “is not enough to end the pandemic”. Maria Van Kerkhove, an epidemiologist, pointed out that the main objective of vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus is to prevent severe cases of COVID-19 and deaths, which is happening in countries with high vaccination rates.
The increase in COVID-19 cases in Portugal has been “very slow” and maybe close to reaching a peak in recent weeks. This is the conviction of Carlos Antunes, mathematician and expert at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, who has collaborated with health authorities.
Meanwhile, the DGS yesterday called for vaccination against the flu and COVID-19, advancing that people aged 80 years and over can make an online appointment to take the two vaccines, and users are being summoned via SMS. The COVID-19 portal can schedule the administration of two vaccines simultaneously. However, at the vaccination centre, the user can choose to take just one of them.
The Portuguese Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology also defended the vaccination of the elderly against COVID-19, flu, pneumonia, whooping cough and herpes zoster to strengthen the immune system in the fight against these diseases that can be fatal in advanced ages.
At the same time, visits by children and young people to the foster home must present the COVID-19 Digital Certificate to enter the institution, according to a DGS guideline released today.
THE PANDEMIC IN EUROPE AND THE WORLD
TODAY, the WHO insisted that schools in Europe remain open with protective measures if necessary, despite the increase in infections for the fourth consecutive week. It should be noted that more than half of the 53 countries that make up the WHO European region reported a “sharp increase” in cases in all age groups last week, 18% more on average, while in the other continents, the trend is down. The WHO highlighted: schools should be “the last place to close their doors and the first to reopen them” and that interrupting their activity should be “the last resort”.
Having not reached the target of vaccinating 70% of the European Union population against the new coronavirus by September, the European Commission expects to achieve this goal by mid-2022. To this end, the European Union is committed to producing more than 3.5 billion doses of vaccines approved by the regulator as early as next year, with the announcement made by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
However, Spain has already administered 844,649 third doses of the vaccine against COVID-19, announced yesterday and the Ministry of Health, which also reported 2,212 new cases of infection and 33 deaths in the country.
Already Africa faces an emerging “threat” of a “crisis” due to a global shortage of disposable syringes, including those used in the COVID-19 vaccine. This was said by the WHO regional director for the African continent, Matshidiso Moeti, during a conference on the evolution of the pandemic, where she said that “early next year, COVID-19 vaccines will begin to circulate across the continent.”
MEDICAL PROGRESS
The Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, linked to the Brazilian Government, and the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca signed yesterday, in the United Kingdom, a commitment to producing 60 million doses of vaccine against COVID-19 in 2022. The commitment signed by the institutions aims to guarantee the availability of vaccine doses in the first half of next year.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
Portuguese GDP grew by 4.2% year-on-year in the third quarter of the year, showing an increase of 2.9% compared to the previous quarter. This result corresponds with the 16.1% achieved in the second quarter of the year-on-year growth, strongly influenced by the base effect caused by the confinement of 2020.
The year-on-year rate of change in inflation in Portugal rose to 1.8% in October, according to a quick estimate from the Consumer Price Index presented this Friday by INE.
For its part, the European Commission confirms that the Recovery and Resilience Plan money will continue to arrive and can be implemented according to the country’s performance, so the State Budget lead for 2022 is not seen as a thorn in the wheel.
At the same time, the Council of Ministers yesterday approved the diploma that provides for the attribution, to private consumers, of a subsidy of ten cents per litre up to a maximum of 50 litres per month for five months. The measure, which aims to mitigate the impact of rising fuel prices on household income, will run from November 2021 to March 2022 and work through the IVAucher platform.
Finally, the strike wave scheduled for November was put on hold because of the political crisis. Only the CGTP maintains the civil service strike plans on the 12th.
FINANCIAL MARKETS
The national stock market continued this morning to advance 0.07%, to 5,750.88 points, while the main European stock exchanges were down after the ECB recognized yesterday that inflationary pressures could last longer than expected. Thus, the EuroStoxx 600 dropped 1.62%, to 473.54 points, and the London, Paris and Frankfurt stock exchanges retreated 0.24%, 0.27%, and 0.26%, and those in Madrid Milan depreciated 0.34%.