COVID-19 | Weekly Update
February 11, 2022
Friday, February 11th | COVID-19 Weekly Update
So far, the DGS has not yet communicated the most recent number of cases. Hence, the known numbers remain at 3,025,421 cases of infection and 20,401 deaths from coronavirus. The number of people recovered remains at 2,388,235.
THE PANDEMIC IN PORTUGAL
The booster dose of vaccination against COVID-19 covered almost 5.5 million (5,499,007) people in Portugal, having received the vaccine last Tuesday 52,353 inhabitants, announced yesterday the Directorate-General for Health.
On the other hand, Prime Minister António Costa announced a new meeting at Infarmed to assess the future of the pandemic. Carlos Antunes, who models the evolution of the disease, said that the country is experiencing a stabilization trend and that there is scope for simplifying the rules imposed so far.
Even so, and in an atypical context marked by the pandemic, in 2021, Portugal achieved a historic low in school dropouts. School directors emphasize the appreciation of the school space.
However, the Regional Government announced today that the presentation of a negative test to COVID-19 to access events and clubs with less than 500 people would no longer be mandatory in all the islands of the Azores.
THE PANDEMIC IN EUROPE AND IN THE WORLD
The European Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, warns that it is too early to say that the pandemic has already entered a new phase, in which measures can be relaxed. This is at a time when the world has already surpassed the barrier of 406 million cases of COVID-19, according to official data from Johns Hopkins University, in the USA.
Germany will begin to lift some of the restrictions that are currently in place from next week, now that the country is close to reaching the peak of the fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
On the other hand, Cape Verde has already used 69% of one million doses of vaccines against COVID-19 that it has received and has vaccinated more than 268,000 people with two doses, with 10% of adults have already received a booster dose.
Meanwhile, New York today plans to lay off nearly 3,000 city employees who refused to be vaccinated against COVID-19, despite the mandatory vaccination policy instituted by the House for its workers.
For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron refused a Kremlin request to take a Russian COVID-19 test when he arrived in the country to meet with his counterpart Vladimir Putin, so he was forced to keep his distance at the meeting.
MEDICAL PROGRESS
People previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 may be more protected against long-term reinfection than those who were just vaccinated, suggests a study that will be presented in April in Lisbon.
The origin of the coronavirus, in particular that of a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2), has long been debated among scientists. However, early genetic material from a unique variant of SARS-CoV-2 was found in Antarctica between December 24, 2018, and January 13, 2019, which adds to the puzzle about the origin of COVID-19.
While the Ómicron variant is reputed to cause a much milder form of COVID-19, doctors say there is something unique to the variant. “We were seeing more COVID-19 positive patients with croup (or laryngotracheobronchitis), which we hadn’t seen before,” explained Ashley Keilman, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist at Seattle Children’s Hospital in the US.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
Public Administration employees who were on mandatory telework, motivated by the pandemic, from December 25 to January 14 will see the amounts returned for additional expenses.
Finally, in 2021 as a whole, the services turnover index increased by 10.5% after the 15.7% reduction recorded in 2020. The fourth quarter of the year recorded an increase of 18.6% compared to the homologous period. This was the first quarter since the pandemic crisis that the index surpassed the result observed in the same period of 2019.
FINANCIAL MARKETS
The PSI-20 was down 0.62% this morning. Europe was already trading in negative territory after a week in the “green”. The German DAX lost 0.44%, the French CAC slipped 0.69%, the Spanish IBEX dropped 0.68%, the British lost 0.43%, and the Italian dropped 0.86%. The Euro Stoxx continued to depreciate 0.80%.
