We start the day with bad news but it is important people are aware.
Yesterday the Minister of health announced that according to projections by 4th November the number of those in hospital from Covid 10 will reach 2634 and those in intensive care 444. Currently they are 1672 and 240 respectively.
Also by 28th October the number of those in hospitalised in intensive care will exceed the highest since the start of the pandemic which was 271.
These calculations and estimates were put forward by the Minister of Health, Marta Temido, in a statement this Monday, taking into account the growing trend of new cases and hospitalizations in recent days.
These estimates are “according to estimates and calculations made by the National Health Institute Dr. Ricardo Jorge in collaboration with the Directorate-General for Health and the Instituto Superior Técnico”.
This will be “a highly complex scenario “, acknowledged Marta Temido, admitting that more municipalities may be the target of restrictive measures such as those applied in Lousada, Felgueiras and Paços de Ferreira.
Meanwhile he Director-General of Health, Graça Freitas, said this Monday that Portugal has an accumulated notification rate of 14 days greater than or equal to 240 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.
The minister of Health Marta Temido explained that government is considering that non-covid-19 patients who see appointments, tests or surgeries at the National Health Service (SNS) to be cancelled due to the worsening of the pandemic and referred to the private and social sectors.
In a press conference at the Ministry of Health, in Lisbon, the minister emphasized that the recovery of the assistance activity for patients with other pathologies had “only a difference of 600,000 consultations between urgent and non-urgent in primary health care until September compared to the same period last year, in a volume of 31 million”, but acknowledged that the exponential increase in cases may again condition the SNS response.