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The new decree on the state of emergency sent this afternoon by the President of the Republic to Parliament is exactly the same in its content that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa sent the deputies two weeks ago and which they approved.
The only novelty is that, in this decree, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa announces that “it is foreseeable that this renewal will have to extend at least for a period until January 7, allowing the Government to anticipate and announce the measures that will be taken during the Christmas and New Year periods “.
And this “all the more so since the good news about vaccination will only begin to have a widespread impact throughout the year 2021.”
In any case, given the legal requirement that states of emergency can only last two weeks, the decree that the PR sent to the RA says that the new state of emergency will have “duration of 15 days, beginning at 00:00 on December 9, 2020 and ending at 23:59 on December 23, 2020“. But this”without prejudice to possible renewals, in the terms of the law“.
In the preamble to the decree, Marcelo welcomes the experts saying that the containment measures have already begun to translate into a positive evolution of the pandemic.
“Expert presentations at the December 3 meeting on Infarmed indicated that about two weeks after the declaration of the state of emergency on November 9, a lower risk of effective transmission of the disease (Rt) and average rate of new cases , as a result of limited personal contacts, resulting directly and indirectly from the measures taken.“wrote the president.
However, “although there is an evolution of the downward trend, with a reduction in the growth rate of these figures”, the truth is that “the clear risks of worsening in case of a reduction of the measures taken” to to face it “requires a renewal of the declaration of the state of emergency, to consolidate the current trajectory”, as has been “alerted by experts and by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control”.
The decree continues to give the government the possibility of imposing curfews and restrictions on movement, and again “the measures to be adopted must be calibrated according to the degree of risk in each municipality.
The PR wants to be informed “permanently”
It also admits mandatory confinement (of patients with covid-19 or people under active surveillance).
Furthermore, the Government continues to request private health facilities “with due compensation.” And “the possibility of ending the labor relations of workers in the services and establishments integrated in the SNS may be limited”, that is, the Government can prevent the professionals of the SNS from terminating their contracts with the State.
However, in the penultimate article of the decree there is a small change compared to two weeks ago. Now “the responsible agencies […] implement the declaration of the state of emergency must maintain permanently informed the President of the Republic and the Assembly of the Republic of the acts in which such execution consists “in the state of exception.”
In the decree of fifteen days ago it only said that “the execution of the declaration of the state of emergency is the responsibility of the Government, that of the respective acts stay informed the President of the Republic and the Assembly of the Republic “.
This is the third decree of a state of emergency issued by the President of the Republic since the second wave of the pandemic began. The first decree was released on November 5 and the second on November 19.
