How Portugal became Europe’s coronavirus blackspot

LISBON — Like the rest of the world, Portugal was keen to bid good riddance to 2020. 

National TV broadcast a million-euro firework display live from Madeira on New Year’s Eve, with spectacular pyrotechnics lighting up the island’s sub-tropical waters.

“People need some joy in the middle of all this,” said the island’s premier Miguel Albuquerque. “These fireworks are a sign of hope for the coming year — we need to have some hope.”

Any such sentiments were short-lived.

Portugal’s COVID-19 infection rate started to soar on January 2, and quickly raced to the top of world infection and death rate rankings. Since New Year’s Eve, Portugal has recorded 5,510 coronavirus deaths — compared with 6,972 in the whole of 2020. 

The number of active cases rose 242 percent during January to 181,623, almost 1.8 percent of the total population. 

Hospitals are overflowing. There were reports of patients waiting up to 12 hours in ambulances lined up outside emergency wards. Intensive care wards are close to saturation. Patients in ICUs reached a new record of 850 on Sunday.

“We’ve lived through very difficult moments, but nothing compared to this,” nurse Mário André Macedo posted on Twitter. “Even so, we are managing to save many, many lives.”

The government has now appealed for international help. 

On Sunday, Austria agreed to take Portuguese intensive-care patients. This week, Germany is set to airlift military medics, paramedics and equipment to relieve Portugal’s beleaguered doctors and nurses. 

On Friday, Portugal’s air force flew three people critically ill with COVID from Lisbon to Madeira, where there are more hospital beds. 

The sudden surge has stunned a country that won international plaudits for the way it escaped the worst ravages of the pandemic’s first wave. 

“In the first phase we were horrified by the images from Spain and Italy, right now the situation is reversed,” said political commentator Luís Marques Mendes.

“Unfortunately, now the images we are seeing reflect the dramatic situation in our own hospitals,” he told SIC TV Sunday. “If you compare the figures with Spain or Germany or the EU average, the difference is colossal.”

A Christmas relaxation of social-distancing rules and the arrival of the fast-spreading “English” virus strain are blamed for the Portugal’s vertiginous infection rates.

Comforted by declining infections in early December, the government announced it would “save Christmas.” 

Prime Minister António Costa urged caution but said the state should “not meddle” with family life by ruling how many people should sit around Christmas dinner tables. 

Six days before Christmas, the British government announced a more infectious coronavirus mutation had gripped southeast England. 

Like other countries, Portugal immediately threw up restrictions, limiting flights from the U.K. to Portuguese residents and citizens with proof of negative COVID-19 tests.

The English strain, however, had already reached Portugal. 

The country is a popular winter destination for British tourists, and despite restrictions, pre-holiday exchanges continued among the 170,000 Portuguese living in the U.K. and 35,000 Brits resident in Portugal. 

Last week, 50 percent of COVID-19 cases in the Lisbon area and a third of cases nationwide were from the English variant, health authorities estimate. 

Costa re-imposed a nationwide lockdown on January 13 and tightened it a week later by shutting schools. Strict frontier controls were introduced at the weekend, banning most foreign travel. Flights to and from Brazil have been halted in an effort to prevent the import of another highly contagious variant. 

There are tentative signs the measures may be having an impact. 

The number of new infections dropped for three days in a row since a peak of 16,432 on Thursday; the weekly average has also started to dip for the first time since late December, and the critical R number showing the rate of infections has also declined. 

It’s unclear if these hopeful signs can be maintained, and when they will start to impact hospitalization and mortality rates. 

Portugal’s newly re-elected president is warning citizens to prepare for the long haul, despite the EU’s sixth-fastest vaccine roll out.

“There’s no point in hiding the reality,” President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa told the nation Thursday as he prolonged the state of emergency for the 10^th time. 

“What we all do through to March will determine how things will be in the spring, the summer, and who knows, the autumn.”

This article is part of POLITICO’s premium policy service: Pro Health Care. From drug pricing, EMA, vaccines, pharma and more, our specialized journalists keep you on top of the topics driving the health care policy agenda. Email [email protected] for a complimentary trial.