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“The Government has announced restrictive measures designed ‘with a scalpel’. The choice of times and dates has a well-defined purpose, to cause the greatest possible impact and almost completely paralyze the restaurant sector,” the association says in a statement released today .
Stating that the new measures to combat the covid-19 pandemic announced on Saturday by the Government “fell sharply in the sector”, PRO.VAR asks the executive to “create a crisis office to accompany the catering sector, which is bankruptcy. “
Industry associations should be involved in this office, to support the Government with contributions in the fight against the pandemic and to find the most appropriate additional extraordinary funds, but we warn you that a colossal amount will be necessary, otherwise it is the ‘hecatomb ‘, because there is already no billing, ”he says.
According to the association, “the Government hides a very well-defined strategy with words” and “it is useless to say that, this time, the state of emergency does not have such serious consequences as at the beginning of the pandemic, when it forced the closure of restaurants” . .
It is that, he maintains, the new measures announced end up being “a closing of the open door”: “The restaurants remain open, but completely empty, because the order is for the Portuguese to stay at home and, during the next weekend. week, the restaurants will remain open, but only with home delivery, ”he says.
In the statement, PRO.VAR advances the conclusions of a survey carried out between Thursday and Saturday in 676 hospitality establishments and which indicates that, between October 30 and November 3, the current restrictions had been met. translated into “estimated turnover losses of 60 million euros in just five days”.
“The figures speak for themselves: 90.1% of restaurants now have losses of more than 50% of turnover and, what is more worrying, almost half of restaurants (48.1%) feel losses above 90% of annual turnover “, Highlight.
Admitting that, after “six lost months, the catering sector had deposited a ray of hope in this last quarter”, the president of PRO.VAR, Daniel Serra, affirms: “The measures now known, among which the elimination of the agendas for restaurant weekends, which we hope will continue until the end of the year, added even more difficulties, unpredictability and uncertainty to the business ”.
“Anguish and fear are now seizing businessmen, leading most to question the effectiveness of the non-reimbursable support measures that were announced a few days ago, considering them untimely, realizing that they will not be enough to save to the people. companies that are already at risk, much less commit to keeping the job, “he concludes.
The Government announced today the curfew between 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. on weekdays, from Monday until November 23, in the 121 municipalities most affected by the pandemic, and on the weekend, the curfew starts at 1:00 p.m. in the same 121 counties.
“We have a clear notion that social interaction has a very important contribution to the spread” of contagion and that the spread develops in the post-employment period, said António Costa, who spoke after midnight, at the end of the meeting of the Advice. of Ministers, in the Palácio da Ajuda, in Lisbon, to implement the measures of the state of emergency that will come into force between Monday, November 9 and 23.
The measure was announced on the day that Portugal reached a new daily maximum number of covid-19 cases by accounting for more than 6,640 infections in the last 24 hours, and recorded 56 deaths in the same period, according to the General Directorate of Health.
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