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The Prime Minister said, this Tuesday, that there is a great consensus that the general confinement measures to be promulgated have a horizon of one month and that Portugal registers a dynamic of “extremely strong growth” in covid-19 cases. Even so, the schools will be open, at least, for young people up to 12 years old and Higher Education will continue with the ongoing evaluations.
This position was assumed by António Costa at the end of a new meeting aimed at analyzing the evolution of the epidemiological situation in Portugal, at Infarmed, in Lisbon, in which the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, participated by videoconference.
The Prime Minister declared that the meeting with epidemiologists allowed to conclude that “there was a very general consensus” on the growth path of new cases of contagion of the new coronavirus and that “the measures should have a horizon of one month.”
“We are facing a tremendously strong growth dynamic in new cases that must be stopped,” stressed António Costa, after having defined the meeting with epidemiologists, which lasted about four hours, “as very lively and interesting.”
“Given the growing trend of the pandemic, it is essential to adopt measures. These measures must have a horizon of one month and with a profile very similar to the one we adopted at the beginning of the pandemic, that is, in the period between March and April” , stressed the leader of the executive.
The prime minister later observed that the figures on new infected cases have shown a high variation and said that Portugal, just last week, was home to four thousand cases of daily contagion, having reached 10,000 and now registering about seven thousand.
However, “regardless of the specific value of the country – and it is always important to take the average for the week – it is certain that there is a very strong growth dynamic that must be stopped. And the only way to stop is to through confinements, “he said.
In front of the journalists, the prime minister considered that the measures of confinement of the weekend adopted until now were insufficient, but that “they allowed to control the second wave”.
“At this point, we have to go further,” added the prime minister.
The subject of education
During the meeting, according to the Prime Minister, there was “an important issue of divergence between the different specialists and that was related to the operation of the schools, which will now require due consideration by the President of the Republic, the Government Parliament” . .
“But it also requires dialogue with other institutions, such as the National Confederation of Parents’ Associations, the Association of School Directors, among others. Obviously it is impossible to interrupt the evaluation activities that are being carried out in Higher Education ”, he began by highlighting António Costa.
According to the prime minister, at the meeting, “all the specialists were converging that, up to the age of 12, nothing justifies the closure of schools, but the doubt is in the middle range. So, the differences between the specialists themselves were very large” .
“Naturally, the political consideration will also have to take into account other factors and also other actors,” he said.
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