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In one week, the average number of new daily cases has practically doubled and now exceeds 2,000 per day. With the level of contagion in the population constantly increasing since the end of September, the growth of the epidemic is already exponential, worrying experts. “Our forecasts have been increasing since then, as a result of the average number of people each infected person is increasing (Rt). We plan to reach 3,500 new cases in early November, which may appear days ago in official statistics. And we estimate to reach 4 thousand daily in the second half of November. It is very worrying, ”says Manuel Carmo Gomes, Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Lisbon and one of the experts who collaborates with the General Directorate of Health (DGS).
Having 4,000 new cases per day means that, in November, around 28,000 infections can be recorded per week. This figure exceeds the 21 thousand that the general director of Health, Graça Freitas, had indicated in February, in an interview with Expresso, as the value that was then estimated to be reached in the most critical week of the epidemic. At the time, neither the experts nor the government believed it. With Rt now reaching 1.27 and steadily increasing, the scenario is more serious. “It is for the North region where the highest transmissibility index is estimated, including the highest since the initial growth phase in the first wave,” says Baltazar Nunes, head of the Department of Epidemiology at the Ricardo Jorge Institute (INSA). Given the acceleration of the epidemic, the Government decided to toughen the rules and decree a state of calamity.
