Portugal is fighting to save the holiday season from new strains of COVID-19
As we have been indicating, there is good and bad news. Among the bad news, there is the fact that some countries have had to take one or two steps back due to the arrival of the new Delta variant of the Covid-19.
Unfortunately, within these countries we can find Portugal, which had been having a good flow of reservations, ranking second among the most reserved countries in Europe. However, this past Friday it became the first country in the European Union to re-impose greater restrictions and safety standards to control the spread of the virus. The curfew remains between eleven at night and five in the morning, due to the fourth wave of the coronavirus that the country is experiencing. According to the newspaper La Vanguardia, the Portuguese had experienced the curfew imposed by the Government in 45 of the 278 regions of the country with the highest incidence of contagion without incident.
According to the latest communications of the General Directorate of Health (DGS) of Portugal, this past Saturday 2,605 infections were notified in Portugal. In addition, four new deaths have been registered by covid, so the total number of deaths since the pandemic broke out it is 17,112 in this country. Revenues continue to rise and today 543 patients are hospitalized for covid (11 more on the last day), of which 122 (4 more) remain in intensive care.
The highest incidence in the country is registered in the areas of Lisbon and the Algarve, with the municipality of Lisbon in 595 cases, according to data updated today by the DGS.
The main cities of the Algarve, one of the most touristic areas in the country, have also skyrocketed their incidence, especially Albufeira, which has the highest incidence in Portugal with 823 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. Also Lisbon is one of the Portuguese areas with the highest incidence of the virus, with 595 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days. Portugal has imposed new perimeter closures and no traffic of people mainly at night. These new restrictions divide tourism and hospitality workers, who debate in the street whether these measures harm or favor local business.
It is clear that the new restrictions represent a deterioration for tourism in Portugal, since the reservation index has decreased since the announcements granted by the Portuguese government, to the point that the country no longer appears in the second place of the most reserved destinations, moving to 4th place after Italy, as shown by the B2B platform TravelgateX.
However, we do not lose hope that both Portugal and the United Kingdom, another of the countries affected by the new variant, can lift these new restrictions soon and resume tourism normally.
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