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The Prime Minister considered it “absolutely premature” to enact a state of emergency due to the pandemic, adding that the state of calamity is “appropriate.” António Costa says that the pandemic is a “marathon” and that the autumn / winter period will be “long.” “The flu has not yet arrived”, emphasizes.
Even so, the Prime Minister stressed that “the need to adopt any kind of measures” cannot be excluded, but they must be taken “to the extent necessary”. “We have to continue distributing and saving the measures to use them when they are strictly necessary to avoid excess fatigue.”
Regarding the wedding with 200 people in Arruda dos Vinhos, Costa recalled that, although the marriages were limited to a maximum of 50 people – it was one of the measures decided in the Council of Ministers, when the state of calamity was announced -, this This rule does not apply to events that were already scheduled.
The prime minister also praised the “difficult decision” of parliament to impose the use of a mask in the street and warned that it cannot exclude more drastic measures such as a curfew if the pandemic situation worsens in the country.
“We cannot exclude the need to adopt any type of measure. We must adopt measures to the extent strictly necessary, ”said António Costa, on the sidelines of a conference by Visão magazine on sustainability and the environment, at Estufa Fria, in Lisbon.
Since, he said, the fight against the pandemic will be “a long marathon” of many months, “you have to manage the effort”, so it is necessary “to distribute and maintain the measures to use them when they are strictly necessary to avoid excess fatigue. ”.
António Costa was asked about his assessment of the experience with the curfew imposed in various European countries.
Two of the biggest problems Portugal faces in this second wave of the pandemic, he added, is the fatigue with the measures on the part of the population and the change in the younger age group, with “less serious cases”, which has “decreased perception of risk “.
One day after the decision of the Assembly of the Republic, which approved a law to make the use of masks mandatory in the street, Costa praised the “difficult decision” of the deputies.
“Obviously it is a nuisance, but we have adopted it to reinforce the awareness that it is now essential for us to control this pandemic, if we do not want to have more global closure measures,” he justified.
The head of government also rejected the idea that the prohibition of circulation between municipalities, next weekend, which coincides with the Day of the Dead, in which thousands of people traditionally move through the country, as a “test” for the Christmas. , in December.
This measure, he said, is justified because “there is a greater risk” with planned displacement within the country, despite the Church’s calls for people to space their trips throughout the month or even with restrictions on access to cemeteries.
The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 1.1 million deaths and more than 42.2 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
In Portugal, 2,276 people died from 112,440 confirmed cases of infection, according to the most recent bulletin from the Directorate General of Health.
