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The vice president of the D3 Association, Ricardo Lafuente, confessed the surprise of the Renaissance after the government’s proposal that he says it is “a terrible attack on individual freedoms.” Prime Minister António Costa announced today that the Government is going to present a proposal to Parliament to make the use of a mask mandatory on public roads and the use of the stayaway covid application in work and school contexts.
“We did not expect [por esta medida], in the midst of the wisdom of the government in handling the pandemic, but it seems to me that now they simply decided to shoot everywhere, “said the official heard on the radio. StayAway Covid “has always been presented as a complement to manual contact tracking and now we are seeing the opposite. In your use of the application and in the blind belief that it will do something. No additional investment in manual screening ”, adds the leader.
“We are talking about China, in this of forcing citizens to use technological detection devices. Even the most cynical did not expect that, from one moment to another, we would be forced to install applications “, says the official, who admits that he hopes that the proposed law will fail in the Assembly of the Republic, if not, the Associação D3 will proceed with a precautionary measure that has already begun to be prepared.
At a press conference after the Council of Ministers in which it was decided to raise the national territory to a situation of calamity due to the pandemic, António Costa announced a set of measures.
“Present to the Assembly of the Republic a bill that we will request an urgent procedure to impose the mandatory use of the mask on public roads – with the evident common sense of only when there are more people on public roads – and also the use of the covid stayaway application in work, school and academic contexts, in the Armed Forces and Security Forces and in the public administration as a whole ”, he announced.
According to the Prime Minister, the Government will deliver this bill “today at the end of the day or tomorrow morning”.
“We will request its processing as a matter of urgency and the need that exists is for this application to exist in all places where there are large concentrations of people for a prolonged period,” he explained, considering that this is a fundamental measure so that people can help each other. to others.
The centrists also disagree with this action: “In relation to the use of the mask in a public space, our concern has to do with the formulation in which it will be done. It is essential that the criteria be clear, that it identifies exactly in what circumstances it is necessary and mandatory to use the mask “so that” people can comply “and” do not allow any type of misunderstandings and difficulties altogether. of the population, ”said the deputy of the CDS-PP, Ana Rita Bessa, in a statement to journalists at the Assembly of the Republic in Lisbon.
Regarding the mandatory use of the ‘StayAway Covid’ application, an application for mobile phones created to alert those who have been close to a person infected with covid-19, the CDS has “background reservations” and highlights that “it is legally very complicated to force people ”using an application“ that monitors their behavior ”.
Ana Rita Bessa observed that “the application was created, designed and advertised as an application for voluntary use, the whole process of ‘downloading’ the ‘app’, connecting via ‘bluetooth’, uploading the code is voluntary” and “raised legal problems too serious to exist as it is ”.
“Therefore, it seems to us legally very complicated that it can be mandatory, it seems to us technically very difficult to do so and in practical terms also very complicated, because that would imply that everyone had a device capable of supporting the ‘app’, which is not exactly the case ”, he defended.
The CDS deputy asked for a “very serious assessment” of this intention, which “is very worrying about what individual freedoms are,” claiming that “it is not entirely clear that it can be considered mandatory.”
“Even in favor of the common good, we understand that it must be evaluated very, very carefully,” he insisted, stating that the centrists identify “serious problems” of constitutionality in this matter. In the opinion of the CDS, “there are more effective measures to control the pandemic”, namely, “to eliminate pressure on the National Health Service” (SNS), contracting with the private and social sector to provide health services. On this issue, the party addressed a question to the Minister of Health, Marta Temido.
“We find it very difficult to explain that, without first considering the capacity that the health system still has to use, from the private and social aspects, measures that interfere in our lives aggravate to a certain extent by not looking for solutions that alleviate the pressure on the hospitalizations in the NHS, whether they are coexistence or not ”, defended Ana Rita Bessa, considering that this should have been“ the first step to take ”.
Asked by journalists if the CDS has been informed of the evolution of the pandemic, as happened in the Infarmed meetings, Ana Rita Bessa replied that the party “has no knowledge beyond what is public” that allows “understanding on what it is based . Government ”to raise the alert level and intensify measures to combat the pandemic.
The deputy also defended that the “ability to monitor and carry out epidemiological inquiries” be done “in a timely manner, to contain outbreaks when they occur”, having said that the party received “numerous complaints” from citizens who were contacted. by public health entities “10 days after testing positive”, instead of “the three days which is the recommended practice.”
One of the other eight decisions announced today by António Costa was “to strongly recommend to all citizens the use of a community mask on the street whenever there are other people on the street and also the use of the covid stayaway application and communication through of this application whenever there is a positive test ”.
“Naturally, these measures took into account both the prospective analysis that is made periodically on the evolution of the pandemic and the assessment that the Minister of Health has made with public health specialists, epidemiologists on the behavior to adopt,” he said.
When questioned by journalists, the president replied that he was “careful to inform the President of the Republic in advance about the set of measures approved today by the Council of Ministers.”
“What we focused on were not the measures that interrupt the activities, but the individual behavior of each one. For now, the call and recommendation we make to everyone is that everyone wear a mask even on public roads and that everyone download the application and use it effectively, ”he insisted.
