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Portugal posted new daily highs for infection cases (4656) and deaths (40) on Thursday. In total, the country has 2,468 deaths and 137,272 infections.
Of the new cases, 2,831 (60.8%) were identified in the North, where 19 people died on the last day. In the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region, there were 1,357 new cases (29%) and 13 deaths occurred. Three people died in the Center, two people died in the Algarve and three in the Alentejo.
With 1,747 more recoveries, the total recovered amounts to 77,449. There are another 2,869 active cases, for a total of 57,355. This figure results from the subtraction of recoveries and deaths from the total number of infections. The data were disseminated in the daily update of the epidemiological bulletin of the General Health Directorate, with information related to the previous day.
The largest number of people in intensive care ever
1,927 people are hospitalized (93 more), of which 275 are in intensive care units (six more). Never before have so many people been hospitalized with covid-19 in Portugal. The number of patients hospitalized in intensive care is also the highest in history, surpassing the highest figure so far (271 people on April 7).
The overall fatality rate in the country is 1.8%. Approximately 86.7% of the people who died with covid-19 in Portugal were over 70 years old: 2,139 people.
The northern region has the highest number of infection cases (61,427) and deaths (1,088) in the country. Lisbon and the Tagus Valley are responsible for 57,937 infections and 980 deaths. The Center registers 11,735 cases of infection (334 more) and 312 deaths, the Algarve counts 2,699 cases (57 more) and 27 deaths, and the Alentejo has 2,673 infections (65 more) and 46 deaths. In the Azores there are 366 cases (plus eight) and 15 deaths and Madeira has 435 infections (four more) and no deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
“The north is the region with the greatest pressure”
The Secretary of State for Health, Diogo Serras Lopes, said this Friday, at the press conference of the General Directorate of Health, that the average of new daily cases in the last week (last seven days) was 3,546, compared to 2,363 and 1711, verified in each of the previous two weeks, figures higher than those of March and April that put “additional pressure” on the NHS.
He added that the National Health Service (SNS) is responding and will continue to respond to the pandemic. He also said that 617 more nursing beds and 93 more beds were made available to covid patients in intensive care units within the NHS.
The general occupancy rate for beds dedicated to covid-19 is 84% in wards and in intensive care units it is 81%, according to the official. “We will continue to face difficult weeks as this pandemic evolves. I want to make it clear that the current capacity of the service and the national health system will continue to expand as necessary to ensure the best health care for all in a context of uncertainty and rapid evolution of the global pandemic ”, he declared.
The occupancy rate in intensive care units in the North, on Thursday, was 88%: “It is the region of the country with the greatest pressure,” he said, adding that, in nursing beds, in the North, the rate was 89%. In Lisbon and Vale do Tejo, he stressed, in intensive care units it was 84% and in nursing 82%.
“I reaffirm that these capacities and the allocation of beds, both in nursing and in intensive care units, to covid patients, is an elastic allocation,” he said, adding that “there is expansion capacity and it will be used as is” . necessary”.
The Secretary of State admitted that “the Centro Hospitalar do Tâmega e Sousa has been, at this time, the most pressured point in relation to this second wave of covid-19”, but added that “it already has facilities to increase its capacity” .
“I want to say here, clearly, that there has been a great collaboration of all the hospitals of the Northern Region, also of the Armed Forces, the Red Cross, in the sense of being able to help the Centro Hospitalar do Tâmega e Sousa before the influx of covid 19 patients that was recorded at this time. In fact, several patients have already been transferred to other hospitals and other services, thus allowing the Centro Hospitalar do Tâmega e Sousa to respond more effectively to the demand that it is also registering ”, he said.
Asked, at the press conference, if a plan has already been delivered to the private sector by the Regional Health Administration (ARS) of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo, the Secretary of State for Health said only that “the articulation of the SNS with The social and private sector is an articulation that has existed for decades and has been maintained in all its aspects “:” Since April of this year, there is a convention that allows individuals to effectively make available, both for patients covid-19 as well as non-covid-19 patients. In ARS Norte, there are currently covid patients in a private health institution that signed this agreement with ARS Norte, ”he said, referring to the patients at the Tâmega e Sousa Hospital Center.
“It is not about delivering or not delivering plans here, there is an availability that can be important in the private and social sector for patients with covid and not covid. We always work with the private and social sector. We will continue working, ”he said.
Still on the pressure on this center, he said: “The three counties that were placed with more restrictive measures were placed for a reason, precisely because they were registering a number of cases clearly higher than what was happening in the rest of the country. And worryingly, as to what would be the hospital’s response capacity. The Centro Hospitalar do Tâmega e Sousa managed, in fact, very quickly to change its ability to react, respond and respond to these patients, ”he said.
And he added: “I emphasize, once again, that the SNS works on a network and it is on a network that it must work exactly because we never are, or it is impossible to guarantee that each hospital can react at every moment of its time to the situation that arises. presents at that hospital. time.”
Diogo Serras Lopes also pointed out: “That is why we have several hospital units of different sizes, with different response capacities, and the Tâmega e Sousa Hospital Center that reacted and responded very well to this moment of the pandemic, currently it is not I want to use the word helped, because it is not about that, but the other hospitals in the region are receiving patients from Tâmega and Sousa “, he said, adding that” the relevant thing “is,” to function as a network, we can effectively guarantee that the needed medical attention ”. The official also said that “the response capacity in the North is currently assured.”
