Portugal experiences devastating surge of Covid cases after letting loose at Christmas

After avoiding the devastation seen in nearby countries during the first wave of Covid-19, Portugal is currently reeling from a severe spike in infection, believed to have been sparked by an excessive relaxation of restrictions at Christmas and the rapid spread of the UK variant.

Having been spared the kind of carnage seen in countries such as neighbouring Spain last spring, Portugal now has the world’s highest seven-day rolling per capita average of new cases, according to the data tracking site Our World in Data.

The number of deaths from Covid in January alone – 5,576 – constituted 45 per cent of the total caused by the virus in Portugal since the start of the pandemic.

“We are living through an unimaginable moment. Things are critical, and the situation can only get worse,” Anabela Oliveira, the director of the emergency ward at Lisbon’s Santa Maria hospital told Spain’s EFE news agency.

Watch: COVID cases in Portugal rise rapidly, Germany sends support

Santa Maria, Portugal’s largest hospital, has a permanent queue of ambulances stationed outside it these days as space and human resources are stretched beyond the limit, while extra cold containers have been installed to ease pressure on the morgue.

Other European countries are now mobilising to help relieve the emergency situation. On Monday Spain was the latest to offer assistance, with Austria having promised to fly seriously ill patients to some of its hospitals and Germany sending a military medical team to Portugal.

Announcing the continuation of lockdown measures and a closure of the border with Spain, Prime Minister António Costa last week accepted blame for the crisis.

“There’s no point in feeding the illusion that we are not facing the worst moment. And we’ll face this worst moment for a few more weeks,” Mr Costa said, including among the errors made “the way I transmitted the message to the Portuguese”.

Indeed, many health experts have criticised an excessive relaxation of social distancing rules at Christmas, when, for several days, all travel restrictions were dropped and there were no limits on the size of gatherings or household mixing.

That laxity, combined with a false sense of security and optimism about the start of the vaccination campaign provided a lethal cocktail when the arrival of the UK variant was added to the mix.

Although Lisbon imposed restrictions when the UK variant was identified, pre-Christmas travel by some of the 170,000 Portuguese living in the UK and 35,000 British citizens resident in Portugal is presumed to have accelerated its spread.

The Kent mutation is already responsible for 50 per cent of new cases in the Lisbon area and is “growing exponentially”, according to Ricardo Jorge, a researcher at the National Health Institute and co-author of a study that says the variant is proving to be 50 per cent more contagious.

Where it was fortunate in the first wave – Covid-19 reached the country later than others, allowing it crucial time to get an effective test-and-trace system up and running – Portugal now finds itself on the front line of increased infection rates from the UK variant.

“In the first phase of the pandemic, Portugal was Europe’s miracle. Now we are hoping for a miracle,” said Miguel Guimarães, president of the country’s medical association.

Dr Guimarães blames a relaxed approach to rising numbers of cases after the summer which relied on curfews as the only major restriction until a lockdown in January.

“In the autumn cases started rising and the confinement measures we adopted were very light,” he said.

Health experts also criticise what is proving a slow start to the vaccine rollout, even by European standards.

According to ECDC data, Portugal has received 338,290 doses of vaccine and administered 166,658 first shots, representing just 1.6 per cent of the population.

Watch: What UK government COVID-19 support is available?