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The Prime Minister, António Costa, pulled the handbrake and put an end to the New Year celebrations throughout the country, to prevent an increase in the contamination of covid-19 after Christmas, but kept the rules that Ya He had announced it a fortnight ago, which allows some Christmas celebration, even in very high-risk and high-risk municipalities.
The main novelty at the national level is that the ban on circulating on public roads during the New Year comes into effect at 11 p.m. on December 31, ending the possibility of people celebrating New Year’s Eve outside their homes. On January 1, 2 and 3, circulation on public roads is prohibited from 1:00 p.m., which prevents New Year’s lunches.
During the New Year period, the prohibition of circulation between municipalities throughout the country is maintained between December 31 and January 4, already announced 15 days ago by the Prime Minister and repeated this Thursday at the end of the Department. of Ministers who approved the decree for the execution of the state of emergency, which will be in force from December 23 to January 7.
Coast in prophylactic isolation
António Costa spoke to journalists in videoconference, from the official residence of São Bento, for being in prophylactic isolation, since he was in Paris, on Wednesday, with French President Emanuel Macron, who this Thursday was diagnosed with COVID-19. At the press conference, after his test was negative in the morning, António Costa assured: “I feel fine, I don’t have any symptoms.”
In relation to the Christmas celebrations, the Prime Minister confirmed the rules that he envisaged on December 5. Even in the municipalities most affected by the covid-19 pandemic, people will be able to move between municipalities or on public roads after 11 p.m., as long as they are in transit. And on the 24th and 25th, public circulation is allowed until two in the morning. On December 26 it will be banned on public roads from 11 p.m.
Justifying the worsening of measures in the interest of public health, the Prime Minister highlighted the idea that, although contamination by covid-19 is decreasing, the truth is that this decrease has evolved “more slowly” than expected.
For this reason, he warned of the need to contain the spread of the pandemic and, above all, of the increase in contaminated patients admitted to nursing and intensive care, to ensure that there is a response from the National Health Service. As for the number of deaths, the first Minister acknowledged that “the figure is still very high”, but as planned and admitted that it will begin to fall from next week.
Betting on the interpellation of the people, the prime minister insisted on repeating, more than once, the rules for the celebration of Christmas. And he insisted on the need to gather the least number of people at the table for the Christmas dinner, that people wear masks “as long as possible” and are “less time at the table” than usual during these holidays.
Insisting on the idea that “much of the risk of contamination is at the food table”, where people are “without a mask”, the Prime Minister stressed that the respect of these norms at Christmas and New Year’s Eve “is fundamental for the new year is certainly a new year of hope.
He even highlighted that the President of the Republic had justified the renewal of the state of exception and the freer rules at Christmas based on the “contract of trust with the Portuguese.” And he argued that “imposing by law” strict rules on celebrations such as Christmas at home “is not related” to the Portuguese social “culture”. The prime minister also wished: “That Christmas is the sharing of your affections, but not the sharing of the virus among us.”
