The
national health institute, Ricardo Jorge, said in its report
that the Delta variant, first identified in India, represented
51% of cases in mainland Portugal, showing the variant is
"spreading rapidly" as it happened in Britain.
New coronavirus cases rose by 1,604 on Friday, the biggest jump
since February 19, when the country of just over 10 million
people was still under lockdown. In total, Portugal has recorded
871,483 cases and 17,081 deaths since the pandemic began.
Although most new cases are still concentrated in the populous
Lisbon region, the southern Algarve region, famous for its
beaches and golf courses, has the highest COVID-19 reproduction
"R" number of 1.34, the report said.
The jump in infections comes after tourism-dependent Portugal
opened to visitors from the European Union and Britain in
mid-May. Most businesses have reopened and, as the summer season
kicks off, beaches are packed.
On Thursday, Portugal imposed stricter rules, including forcing
restaurants to shut earlier over the weekend in Lisbon and in
the Algarve tourism magnet Albufeira, a popular destination for
British visitors.
Britain removed Portugal from its quarantine-free travel list
earlier this month and Germany declared Portugal to be a
"virus-variant zone" on Thursday, a measure that will trigger
severe restrictions on travel to and from the country.
The number of people in need of hospital care in Portugal, which
faced its toughest battle against the virus in January, has also
increased. There are 71 COVID-19 patients in intensive care in
Lisbon, occupying 86% of beds allocated to those infected by the
virus.
To tackle the surge, Portugal is speeding up the vaccination of
younger people at a time only around 30% of the population has
been fully vaccinated so far.
(Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
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