COVID-19 | Weekly Update

Friday, November 26th | COVID-19 Daily Update

In the last 24 hours, eight people have died in Portugal, and there are 3,205 new cases of COVID-19 infection. According to data released today in the epidemiological bulletin, there's now a total of 1,136,446 confirmed cases in the country, with 18,393 deaths still to be regretted since the pandemic's beginning. As for the number of people who recovered from the disease, 1,842 cases were counted, increasing to 1,067,173.

THE PANDEMIC IN PORTUGAL

The Council of Ministers met yesterday to decide on new measures to halt the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the prime minister, António Costa, presenting them after two days of receiving the parties. Masks in all enclosed spaces, the mandatory digital certificate for access to restaurants and local accommodation and a "containment week" in early January are some of the measures in place.

Today, the Minister of Health said that in the approaching phase, "almost everything will be against us" concerning the COVID-19 pandemic. "The cold, the issue of greater transmissibility in environments that are not as airy as they should be, the coexistence associated with the Christmas season" are three "elements of enormous concern", said Marta Temido.

For the "Ordem dos Enfermeiros", the new measures dictated by the Government are "appropriate and adapted to reality". Ana Rita Cavaco, President of the "Ordem dos Enfermeiros", recalled that the nurses had warned that the reduction in testing and the non-requirement for a digital certificate would be premature.

However, the Portuguese Government today delivers to Angola a new batch of 200,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines against COVID-19, making a total of 920,000 vaccines made available to the African country since last July. According to a press release from the Embassy of Portugal, the batch of vaccines arrives in Luanda today, accompanied by the material necessary to make their administration viable.

With just a few days to reach a daily average of four thousand new cases of COVID-19, Carlos Antunes, from the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, says that "this is not a good sign" that the number of tests carried out in Portugal will continue below the rate of new infections. In other words, "the coronavirus is infecting faster than we can detect".

THE PANDEMIC IN EUROPE AND THE WORLD

The UK Health and Safety Agency's Lead Expert Advisor warned that the new strain identified in southern Africa is "the most worrying of all detected", resulting in transmission levels that have not been recorded since the pandemic's beginning. Susan Hopkins reports that the Rt value of the B.1.1.529 variant in Gauteng, a province in South Africa where the strain was found, has now been fixed at 2. When the Rt number exceeds 1, an epidemic is expected to grow exponentially.

However, the European Commission announced today that it would propose the suspension of flights from Southern Africa to the European Union due to the appearance of that variant of SARS-CoV-2. However, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von Leyen, does not specify which countries are covered by this measure.

Moreover, today, Austria, Italy, Israel and Singapore forbade the entry of travellers from Mozambique, along with other southern African countries, as a precautionary measure due to the new variant of the coronavirus detected in South Africa. The United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan also announced the imposition of restrictive measures on the entry of travellers from other countries in that African region, particularly from South Africa.

Israel has identified a case of infection with the new variant of COVID-19, with many mutations detected for the first time in South Africa. The information was advanced today by the country's Ministry of Health.

Finally, vaccination against COVID-19 has prevented the death of nearly half a million people aged 60 and over in 32 European countries in less than a year. The WHO and the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention study presents estimates for the period between December 2020, when vaccination campaigns began, and November 2021.

ECONOMIC IMPACT

According to data released yesterday by the Ministry of Finance, the state registered a deficit in public accounting of 6,673 million euros until October, a reduction of 650 million euros compared to the same period last year. The evolution results from revenue growth to 7.3%, higher than that of expenditure (5.7%).

For its part, the Ministry of Finance has withdrawn, until September, 260.2 million euros of the 1,014.7 million captives and initial budget reserve, according to data released yesterday by the Directorate-General for the Budget. Thus, 260.2 million euros were released, of which 87.3 million concern the budget reserve, which has an initial allocation of 323.7 million euros, with 236.4 still to be released.

It should also be noted that Banco de Portugal, the Portuguese Securities Market Commission and the Supervisory Authority for Insurance and Pension Funds launched today the new National Plan for Financial Supervision for 2021-2025. The leader of Banco de Portugal, Mário Centeno, makes a positive assessment of the first years of the plan, considering that this is "a privileged moment" to carry out a reassessment of the strategic objectives.

Lastly, in October 2021, deposits held by individuals in resident banks maintained a growth rate of 6.9% compared to the same month, totalling 169.7 billion euros, disclosed today by the Bank of Portugal. Corporate deposits in banks resident in Portugal grew, in October 2021, by 14.0% compared to the same month of the previous year, equaling 59.3 billion euros (they had grown by 14.6% in the last month).

FINANCIAL MARKETS

By mid-morning, the PSI-20 was following the sell-off on the stock exchanges but eased part of the falls registered at the opening, with the index devaluing 1.62%, the most contained decline on the European stage.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange opened lower today, with the main index, the Nikkei, losing 2.23%, to 28,841.40 points. Earlier in the session, the second indicator, Topix, dropped 1.75% to 1,990.28 points.