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Graça Freitas said this Friday, at the conference on the epidemiological balance of the General Health Directorate (DGS), that “family gatherings”, such as weddings and baptisms, “have been responsible for 67% of the cases reported in recent days in the country. ”.
When the health authorities carry out an epidemiological investigation, they find this type of interaction ”. The Director General of Health called on families to “refrain, at this stage of increasing transmission in the community, from having these festive gatherings that obviously lead to relaxation, multiple contacts and close contacts. This is usually accompanied by meals, food and drinks, the masks are removed, further increasing the risk. “
“We are not in 2019,” recalled Graça Freitas, who asked family and friends to “try to socialize less in this phase in which the virus is very active in Portugal and Europe.”
In turn, the Minister of Health indicated that, despite the reinforcement in the response to covid-19, there are “many things to continue improving”, such as “telephone service and waiting areas for primary health care”, areas that are times and in which the Ministry of Health hopes to advance “in the next two months.”
“We are talking about complex interventions and old NHS problems that have worsened in the context of the pandemic,” he said, referring that these improvements involve not only the reinforcement of human resources, but also the replacement of old telephone exchanges.
Marta Temido also highlighted the increase in covid-19 testing capacity since March, the month that marked the beginning of the counting of cases of the new coronavirus in the country.
“We went from an average of 2,500 tests per day in March to 19,600 tests per day in October,” said Marta Temido. October 7 was the day the test record was set, with 28,392 tests performed. Of these, almost 8% were positive, some “possibly retest”, but still “a warning sign”, according to the minister.
The President of the Republic also commented, this Friday, the increase in cases of covid-19 in recent days. During a visit to the Braga Hospital, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said that, if necessary, he would rethink the Christmas season. “It is necessary to rethink Christmas as a family, Christmas as a family is rethought. It cannot be a Christmas with 100 people, with 60 people, with 50 people, with 30 people, Christmas is divided by the various components of the family, ”he said.
Portugal registered, in the last 24 hours, 1,394 of infection by covid-19, in what becomes the second worst day in history in this indicator, after the 1,278 new cases registered on Thursday.
