COVID-19 | Daily Update
June 30, 2020
Tuesday, June 30th | COVID-19 Daily Update
CURRENT OUTLOOK
The data released today by The Portuguese General Directorate of Health (DGS), in the daily epidemiological bulletin, indicate that in the last 24 hours, eight more deaths and 229 new cases of COVID-19 infection were registered in Portugal.
The number of fatalities rose from 1,568 to 1,576, while confirmed cases increased from 41,912 to 42,141.
The number of people recovered is now 27,505, 300 more than yesterday.
The Lisbon and Tagus Valley region keeps being the main concern for health authorities, concentrating 188 cases out of the 229 new cases released today.
PANDEMIC IN PORTUGAL
With the increase in cases of COVID-19 in the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon, the pressure on hospitals is also rising. The Amadora-Sintra, Loures, and Setúbal hospitals are the most affected at this time, with occupancy rates around 100%.
The Mayor of Lisbon, Fernando Medina, held the DGS, the Ministry of Health, and the Local Health Authority (ARS) responsible for the current epidemiological situation in the capital.
Greater Lisbon area will have more medical doctors to map the cases of COVID-19 and multidisciplinary teams on the ground, who can count on the help of the police to ensure that the isolations are carried out.
The president of FNAM (National Medical Doctors Federation), Noel Carrilho, warns that if more health professionals are not hired “it is impossible” for doctors to resume all activity and, at the same time, provide assistance to patients infected with COVID-19.
The Health Secretary of State António Lacerda Sales said yesterday that, out of a universe of 11,285 users, the current panorama of the country in the number of infected in nursing homes points to 1,528 cases.
The head of DGS, Graça Freitas, on the other hand, warned professionals that “rules must be complied with” to minimize the “possibility of infection”.
General Practitioners are “very concerned” about the impact that the three-month stoppage of medical appointments and treatments due to the pandemic can have on chronically ill patients.
PANDEMIC IN EUROPE AND THE WORLD
The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday that “the worst is yet to come” concerning COVID-19, pointing to the politicization of the pandemic as a dividing factor exploited by a “fast and killer” virus.
The European Union (EU) is starting to reopen its external borders as early as tomorrow to just 15 countries. USA, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico are excluded.
The Robert Koch Institute today released data from the past 24 hours on the evolution of COVID-19 in Germany. Since yesterday, 12 more people have died and 498 new cases have been diagnosed.
According to a report by the Johns Hopkins University, the United States recorded 355 deaths and 42,426 newly infected by COVID-19 in the last 24 hours.
At the same time, Brazil accounted for 692 dead and 24,052 infected, the Brazilian Ministry of Health reported, adding that the country’s lethality rate is 4.3%.
Mexico recorded 473 deaths and 3,805 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number of deaths to 27,121 and the number of infected to 220,657 since the beginning of the pandemic.
China diagnosed 19 new cases of COVID-19, including seven in Beijing.
Australian authorities announced today that they will impose mandatory four-week confinement on residents of ten areas in the city of Melbourne, following the exponential increase in COVID-19 cases in that region.
MEDICAL PROGRESS
The price will be the same for all developed countries: 347 euros. This is the amount that Gilead Sciences will charge for each bottle of Remdesivir. This is because, on average, treatments with the experimental drug have taken five days, during which each patient receives six bottles. In total, each patient treated should cost 2,082 euros.
Two days after Brazil announced an agreement to receive up to 100 million doses of a vaccine against the new coronavirus, an AstraZeneca director said it was just a letter of intent and that negotiations are still pending.
Japan’s Agnes has announced that it will start testing a potential genetic vaccine against COVID-19 in humans today, aiming to produce it on a large scale in 2021.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
TAP airlines may be nationalized, as a result of the lack of agreement between the State and private shareholders regarding the loan to the company.
In a hearing at the Parliamentary Committee on Economics, Public Works, and Innovation, Minister Pedro Nuno Santos did not clarify whether the Government will opt for this measure or not.
TAP recorded losses of 395 million euros in the first quarter due to the pandemic. The company also saw a 54.7% decrease in the number of passengers transported in March compared to the same month of 2019.
If Portugal is left out of the UK air corridors exempt from quarantine, the impact on the economy can be brutal: 3.3 million euros less. This was the value that the 9.4 million British tourists generated last year alone in overnight stays, according to data from Turismo de Portugal.
In the first 100 days of the pandemic, 200 million fewer card transactions were made, which is equivalent to eight billion euros of lost transactions, with purchases focusing on essential goods, according to data from SIBS (Managing entity of ATM Multibanco).
After the pandemic pushed 68,000 employees from the general careers of the State to remote work, the Government wants to regulate the matter and pave the way for up to 17,000 workers to remain in remote functions by 2023.
Some companies are imposing vacation with salary cuts on workers who are in a lay-off. ACT (Authority that inspects work conditions) does not have a record of any such complaints, but SITE Norte specifies the cases, without mentioning names.
At the Ministers Council meeting, the Government approved a tax exemption for the Champions League, despite the current economic crisis.
The pandemic could lead to a fall of between 85 and 140 million euros in advertising investment in Portugal this year, if there are no factors that will lead to a revival of the economy in the second half, points out Natália Júlio, head of Magna Portugal.
In Europe, UK GDP fell 2.2% in the first quarter of the year compared to the previous three months, the biggest drop since 1979, the National Statistics Office reported today.
In Spain, the economy fell 5.2% in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the previous one, as a result of COVID-19, which means an unprecedented drop.
FINANCIAL MARKETS
The Portuguese stock exchange opened falling today, with the PSI-20 dropping 0.12% to 4,387.44 points.
This happened even though only five stocks were listed in red, compared with ten in green, while three remained unchanged.
US stock exchanges opened the week upwards, buoyed mainly by encouraging economic data and the gains of Boeing and Tesla. Dow Jones ended up adding 2.32% to 25,595.80 points, while Standard & Poor’s 500 advanced 1.47% to 3,053.24 points.
