COVID-19 | Daily Update

Sunday, July 5th | COVID-19 Daily Update

CURRENT OUTLOOK

The number of people infected by COVID-19 in Portugal rose to 43,897, 328 more in the last 24 hours, according to the epidemiological report released by the Portuguese General Directorate of Health (DGS). 

The data also reveals the occurrence of nine deaths from yesterday to today, bringing to 1,614 the total number of fatalities from the new coronavirus in the country.

 

PANDEMIC IN PORTUGAL

The DGS issued a statement yesterday, in which it guarantees that the data it has provided daily regarding the impact of the pandemic is “guided by a relationship of rigour and transparency”. 

This position was made public after several reports pointing out that the numbers that have been presented do not correspond to the total number of positive cases of COVID-19 in Portugal.

The President of the Republic today visits Câmara de Lobos, two months after the lifting of the sanitary fence, installed between April 19th and May 3rd, due to a chain of transmission of COVID-19. 

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa stressed that the response of the Madeira regional authorities to the pandemic went “very well”. During the visit, the Head of State was convinced that “doubts” about the requirement that British tourists visiting Madeira have to comply with a quarantine on their return to the country will soon be “dispelled”. 

On this subject, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Augusto Santos Silva, wants the British to visit Portugal, but without passing through the Lisbon region. The official is already studying alternatives to the decision of the British Government, which maintained the mandatory quarantine for tourists who return from Portugal after spending their holidays.

Diplomatic sources said yesterday that 24 Portuguese were repatriated from Venezuela, a country where they were held up due to the pandemic.

 

PANDEMIC IN EUROPE AND THE WORLD

The USA recorded more than 42,000 new cases of infection in 24 hours, while Mexico surpassed France in the number of deaths. 

China detected eight infected people in Beijing. 

The WHO announced a record increase in infections globally, with a rise of 212,326 cases worldwide, and an emphasis on the USA, Brazil, and India.  

Regarding the pandemic, US President Donald Trump says, in a video released to mark the 4th of July holiday, Independence Day, that the United States will soon recover from the “plague of China”.

In parallel, the German state acquired a 23% stake in the biopharmaceutical company CureVac, which has one of the most developed investigations in the world for the vaccine against COVID-19. 

Angela Merkel’s government invested 300 million euros, which was financed by the German Credit Bank for Reconstruction and Development.  

Belgium, on the other hand, changed the recommendation for tourist trips to Spain from “green” to “orange”, after the confinement decreed in the Catalan province of Lleida, reported today the country’s Foreign Service.

 

MEDICAL PROGRESS 

The World Health Organization (WHO) will discontinue the use of hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir in the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19, due to the lack of clinical evidence to reduce the mortality of infected patients.

Through nanoparticles embedded in textiles (sheets, gowns, or masks), it becomes possible to destroy the virus in individual protection materials. It is an important step in preventing transmission in hospitals and nursing homes. In an interview with “Diário de Notícias”, the project coordinator, Salette Reis, talks about this remarkable moment for the scientific community in Portugal.

 

ECONOMIC IMPACT

The Public Finance Council yesterday dismissed the scenario of a rapid economic recovery due to the context of uncertainty caused by the pandemic. For Nazaré da Costa Cabral it will take “more years” for this to happen, both from a budgetary and economic point of view. 

Unemployment in the Algarve increased by more than 200% in May to almost 28,000 unemployed, reaching mainly the hotel sector, which despairs for the arrival of tourists to mitigate the “blow” of almost three months of losses. 

On the other hand, the month of June marked the phased return to the companies of many of the Portuguese in remote work due to the pandemic, but several are still at home and the companies have gained “new perspectives” on the advantages of remote work. 

Nobody is immune to the crisis affecting world aviation because of COVID-19. Nor airports, as has been the case with ANA (the entity that manages Portuguese Airports). The worst may be over, as airlines began slowly resuming flights in June. But ANA will have lost more than one million euros a day at the peak of the sector’s stop.

Meanwhile, Transavia selected Portugal as one of the preferred markets for the resumption of its operations after the impact of the pandemic. Transavia’s CEO Nathalie Stubler revealed that the airline’s offer for the national airports it calls – Lisbon, Porto, and Faro – is expected to total 500,000 seats in July and August.

In Lisbon, the City Mayor, Fernando Medina, disclosed that in June Carris transported 47% of the passengers it had transported in the same month of 2019, which means a 53% year-on-year drop, despite the number of kilometres travelled by company’s buses and trams have increased by 8%.

 

FINANCIAL MARKETS

The proposal to reduce trading hours on European stock exchanges was rejected, as the Federation of European Stock Exchanges argued that it would be detrimental to liquidity and would bring further turbulence.