Brussels, Nov 25, 2021 (Lusa) – Portugal mainland and the Azores were today placed in the high-risk category for covid-19 on the map of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which supports decisions on travel in the European Union, joining Madeira.
After last week, Madeira had moved back from the orange to the red category on this map (which follows a traffic light system), it was today the turn of mainland Portugal and the Azores to see their classification worsened, moving to the red, which means high risk for the spread of the pandemic.
The red category – in which all regions of Portugal now fall – on the ECDC map means that, in these European regions, the cumulative rate of reporting cases of infection in the last 14 days ranges from 75 to 200 per 100,000 inhabitants or is more than 200 and less than 500 per 100,000 inhabitants, and the test positivity rate is 4% or more.
The ECDC map combines the reporting rates of covid-19 cases in the past 14 days, the number of tests performed, and the total number of positives, and is updated weekly on Thursday.
In today’s update, virtually all of Europe is covered in red and dark red, on the day it surpassed 1.5 million covid-19-associated deaths, and when several countries on the continent are reinstating restrictions to try to curb record contaminations.
This map from the European agency follows a traffic light system on the spread of covid-19 in the EU, starting at green (favorable situation), through orange, red and dark red (very dangerous situation).
It serves as an aid to member states on what restrictions to apply to travel within the EU.
Last February, and due to the high number of infections with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes the covid-19 disease, Portugal was even in the dark red category of the ECDC maps, used for areas where the virus circulates at very high levels.
In mid-June, the Council of the EU adopted a recommendation for a coordinated approach to travel, proposing that vaccinated and recovered covid-19 patients not be subjected to restrictive measures such as quarantines or testing.
Covid-19 has caused at least 5,165,289 deaths worldwide, among more than 258.29 million infections by the new coronavirus recorded since the start of the pandemic, according to the most recent assessment by Agence France-Presse.
In Portugal, since March 2020, 18,385 people have died and 1,133,241 cases of infection have been recorded, according to data from the Directorate General of Health.
The disease is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, detected in late 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China, and currently with variants identified in several countries.
