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The message of this new state of emergency is “difficult” to convey, admits António Costa. It was easy to say that it is necessary to confine the whole country or to say that there are no restrictions. So, given the complexity of the message, he says he is doing everything, and puts his hand under the National Health Service: “The NHS has not failed at all,” he said in an interview with TVI on Monday night. Currently, it is “half the capacity of beds assigned to covid” and “if we can control the situation” it will be possible “live without breaking dramas”. For now, the numbers tell him that the situation is getting worse, but that “we are not yet on a break.
The SNS red line is drawn at the limit of 704 intensive care beds. These are the ones that are assigned to Covid cases and are currently 433 busy. The maximum could be 944, but “it already bothers the other activity”, that is, it bothers other non-covid patients who need to be in intensive care. Walking on thin ice, Costa looks at the worsening of the situation – he said he was “surprised” that this wave had come earlier – and argues that he had to act now to try to control future damage. “Do you think it’s lightly?” He asked, about the need to impose a curfew.
Given the capacity of the NHS, why not turn to individuals? Costa refuses not to do so, recalls the agreements with individuals in the performance of tests and treatment of other patients, and asks that this agreement with individuals is not expected to help improve the situation. “It makes no sense to have the illusion,” he said, denying at the same time that “there is no ideological bias,” but the private ones only have “121 intensive care beds.”
“The only way to control this pandemic is maximum isolation and individual protection”, said.
Additional support for restaurants
The restaurant sector will be the most affected by the new restrictions that start this Monday and, therefore, in addition to the 1,150 million euros of non-reimbursable aid to micro and small companies, the Government will launch “specific support” for restaurants due to the losses of the coming weekends, in which there will be restrictions imposed by the Government.
The announcement was made by the prime minister in an interview with TVI. According to António Costa, the “electronic invoice allows to know the recipe of each restaurant” and an average (of the year, month or weekends) will be prepared so that the support can be designed. “The criteria is not yet established”Said Costa, who said that the ministries of Economy and Finance are working on the measure. “We have estimated the fixed costs that these companies have” that have support and will have “specific support to mitigate the effects of this weekend,” he said.
Rio’s “lightness of values” when reaching an agreement with Chega
The formation of the “contraption” has been used by the Social Democrats to legitimize the party’s option of an agreement with Chega for André Ventura’s party to enable the formation of a right-wing government in the Autonomous Region of the Azores. António Costa rejects the comparisons and says that if there were a right-wing majority (not Chega) that would not have any problem. “He wasn’t really angry” about that, but about the fact that this deal includes Chega. “What I noticed, which is of the greatest gravity, is that the PSD has taken a step that the democratic right has refused to take, which is to reach an agreement with a xenophobic party on the extreme right “, said.
The matter irritates António Costa not “because of the terms of the agreement, but because of Chega’s nature. For standardization… “, he said. When asked if Chega is not the same as the parties that supported him, PCP and BE, António Costa rejected the comparison since there is talk of a” xenophobic extreme right “party that does not defend the more basic human rights. “He is making a deal with Chega without Chega changing anything,” he said. Costa admits that at some point the parties vote in the same direction as Chega, but that “negotiating” with Chega is another story. “No. I accuse BE of voting with Chega [na votação do Orçamento do Estado]. BE did not negotiate with Chega the vote against the Budget, ”he said, for example.
This decision by Rui Rio is what he called a “qualitative leap.” “It is no coincidence that in Europe there is a very clear distinction and a sanitary cordon towards the xenophobic parties of the extreme right. Whoever commits himself shows lightness in relation to essential values“he said, recalling parties of the PSD family such as the CDU or Angela Merkel’s PP in Spain. On the side of the PS there is a certainty:”I will never negotiate anything with Chega ”.
