COVID-19 | Daily Update

Friday, July 3rd | COVID-19 Daily Update

CURRENT OUTLOOK 

Up to the moment this Daily Update is being released, the Portuguese General Directorate of Health (DGS) has not yet reported the most recent numbers of the pandemic in Portugal.

 

PANDEMIC IN PORTUGAL 

The Algarve Biomedical Center consortium has already carried out about 20,000 tests on COVID-19 using the pooling method, which allows the detection of positive cases in groups of samples tested at the same time, said the president, Nuno Marques.

After verifying that the largest number of cases is consistently occurring in Lisbon and the Tagus Valley, the Mayor of Lisbon, Fernando Medina, sustained yesterday that it is necessary to “do more and faster” in the region concerning the combat to the pandemic.  

On the Government’s side, Duarte Cordeiro, coordinator of the same region, has already said that he is not yet sure whether the increase in cases is due to worse conditions in poor neighbourhoods and considers that Fernando Medina’s criticisms of blame attributable to “bad bosses” are “legitimate”.

In Cascais, the number of infected people at the Alcabideche nursing home rose to 52 after tests were carried out on the institution’s employees, a source from the municipality said today. 

In the North, after the outbreak at a fish canning factory in Caxinas, the number of infected people rose to 15.

 

PANDEMIC IN EUROPE AND THE WORLD

The World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday that the new coronavirus is changing, however, it has not lost stamina as some would expect. 

“These are natural changes that are expected of an RNA virus,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical officer in the fight against the pandemic, at a press conference from the organization’s headquarters in Geneva.

Given the likelihood of a second wave of the virus, the Italian Minister of Health said he could not dismiss this idea in the country and justified the limitations to travellers from countries outside the EU to prevent further contagion.

As for the new cases of infection registered, as well as new fatalities caused by COVID-19 in the world, in the last 24 hours, the USA counts on 623 deceased and 54,437 infected, according to a balance of the Johns Hopkins University, hitting a new daily record of infections. 

Brazil may hit the eight million infected people mark, almost six times more than the official number previously admitted by the Brazilian health authorities, according to a study commissioned by the Ministry of Health.  

In India, today’s death toll is 379 and more than 20 thousand infected. 

China has identified five new cases, two in Beijing and three from abroad, officials said today. 

North Korean newspapers said today that leader Kim Jong Un called on the party to remain alert against the coronavirus, warning that complacency could lead to “unimaginable risks and an irrecoverable crisis”. North Korea still claims to have zero infections.

 

MEDICAL PROGRESS

A study by the University of Oxford reveals that 20% to 30% of patients with COVID-19 experience some delirium, a figure that rises to 60% to 70% when it comes to Intensive Care Units (ICU) admissions. 

After years of fighting other coronaviruses that cause common flu, the immune system may already be prepared for the virus. The researcher who leads the Oxford vaccine project mentions the occurrence of a high “protection level” in “a significant number of people”. 

Autopsies on patients who died of COVID-19 are increasingly helping to discover the consequences of the new coronavirus on the human body. Among the most important factors discovered, it stands out that the coronavirus attacks the lungs with great violence, corroborating previous results from CAT scans. 

The Spanish pharmaceutical company PharmaMar claims that it has developed a medicine that is more effective than Remdesivir, one of the main drugs that are being used against COVID-19.

 

ECONOMIC IMPACT 

Today, in a global final vote, the Portuguese Parliament approved the Supplementary Budget proposal, which was designed to respond to the economic and social consequences caused by the pandemic.  

These negative consequences affected almost 40% of the food and beverage sector companies, which are considering moving towards insolvency, reveals a survey by the Portuguese Hotel, Restaurant, and Similar Association.

TAP’s controversy seems to be closer to the end after the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, Pedro Nuno Santos, announced last night that the State has finally managed to ensure “minimum conditions”. 

The National Civil Aviation Flight Personnel Union hopes that the agreement will ensure the company’s viability and safeguard jobs.

However, Prime Minister António Costa assured today that TAP’s restructuring “unfortunately means that job cust needs to be made”.

The German Parliament supported the ECB’s (European Central Bank) debt-buying program yesterday, seeing it as the key support for the euro economy – heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic – thus ending a legal stalemate.

 

FINANCIAL MARKETS

The Portuguese stock exchange continued to trade higher today for the second consecutive session, with the PSI-20 rising slightly by 0.06% to 4,431.90 points.  

Among the 18 companies that are part of the main national index, ten were up, four down and four unchanged.  

In Europe, stock exchanges also rose for the fifth session, heading for the best week in a month.