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The President of the Republic said this Friday that the Portuguese should know the rules for Christmas next week, when the state of emergency is renewed.
Next week there will be news in this regard “the President of the Republic told reporters at the end of an initiative at the facilities of the newspaper Público in Lisbon. “It makes no sense to keep the Portuguese waiting until December 24 to find out what they are going to do on Christmas Eve,” he added. “It seems to me common sense that, beforehand, the Portuguese know how they can organize that weekend of the 24th, 25th, 26th and 27th.”
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said that the decisions about Christmas are related “to the renewal of the state of emergency”, which has been in force in Portugal since November 9.
Next week there will be news about this, there will be an epidemiological session, there will be an audience of political parties, there will, of course, be the opinion of the Government, there will be authorization from the Assembly of the Republic, and then there will be the decision of the President of the Republic ” .said the head of state.
Regarding the next renewal of the state of emergency, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said that December 8 is a holiday and said that “the last day that the Assembly of the Republic has to pronounce is next Friday.”
Therefore, we are relatively close to that moment of decision regarding the renewal and regarding the state of emergency ”.he added.
During the current covid-19 pandemic, a state of emergency was enacted to allow measures to contain the spread of this disease and was renewed twice in a row, from March 19 to May 2. It was re-enacted in November and has already been renewed once.
To renew this legal framework for another 15 days, which allows the suspension of the exercise of some rights, freedoms and guarantees, the President of the Republic must have to listen to the Government and have the authorization of the Assembly of the Republic.
The President thus sent a message to the Executive of António Costa, who is in charge of defining the measures in force in the state of emergency. It is recalled that the Prime Minister has already admitted that the state of emergency will almost certainly be in effect during the festive season.
The current state of emergency ends at 11:59 p.m. on December 8 and, if renewed, will be in effect until December 23.
This week, the Minister of Health said that the Portuguese I can’t wait for a Christmas like the previous ones, reinforcing the idea of the importance of social distance to avoid an increase in infections during the Christmas season.
As much as the epidemiological situation improves, we will not be able to have a Christmas like the others“said Marta Temido, noting that it is still” too early “to announce the restrictions that will be in effect during the holiday season.
We must focus on breaking the chains of transmission and containing the disease. Some countries that started to grow this second wave earlier and that adopted containment measures before, are already managing to anticipate a little better what December will be like. We are also doing this analysis and evaluation “, said.
On Tuesday, a document from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) was published that estimates that if the countries that in October and November took new measures to control the pandemic lifted them on December 21, hospital admissions would increase. in the first week of January.
In Portugal, 4,276 people have died from covid-19, in a total of 285,838 cases of infection recorded, according to the General Directorate of Health.
