Azores Situation Report Saturday 19th June 2021
From our colleague in the Azores
Digital vaccination certificates
Passengers arriving in the Azores with full vaccination against Covid-19, 14 days after the full vaccination, will no longer be required to take a screening test. This will happen as soon as the digital certificate is implemented in the region.
Continental Portugal began issuing digital vaccination certificates against Covid-19, on Wednesday 16th June, and it is possible to order it on the SNS24 portal. The PCR and recovery test certificates have had a “positive response from the Directorate-General for Health and shared services of the Ministry of Health so that there will be integration of data from the vaccination that took place in the Autonomous Region of the Azores into national systems”.
The verification system of these certificates, through a mobile reading application, is in the phase of completion of pilot tests, and, according to the European Digital Certificate Regulation, the European verification systems must all be in force from the 1st of July.
The process is proceeding as desired. The 1st of July is the official date for the beginning of the certificate, the region expects that all registries will be integrated and that all Azoreans can have access to the certificate.
The Azores require a screening test for the new coronavirus that causes Covid-19 to anyone who arrives from outside the region, within 72 hours prior to travel or arrival, ensuring its cost, when performed in agreed laboratories in national territory or by regional health services.
A test is also required for passengers departing the island of São Miguel (the only one with identified community transmission) to another island and, in both cases, it is necessary to repeat the analysis six days after the first.
Vaccination of tourism professionals
The Regional Government of the Azores has decided to integrate tourism professionals, namely taxi drivers, guides, receptionists and SATA crew, in priority groups for vaccination against Covid-19, announced the regional director of Health, Berto Cabral.
“We decided to vaccinate taxi drivers and other people who work in the tourism sector,” said Berto Cabral, at a press conference in Angra do Heroísmo.
The range of professionals integrated in this group will be decided by the regional direction of Tourism, but Berto Cabral gave as an example, drivers, tourist guides and receptionists.
As for the 5,550 Janssen vaccines (single administration) that have recently arrived in the region, they have already started to be administered, according to the regional director, with 4,000 remaining on the island of São Miguel and 1,500 on the island of Terceira.
Berto Cabral stressed that this vaccine will allow “an acceleration of vaccination in these islands” especially in the age group above 50 years and in “situations in which the logistical process can be more complex”.
As an example there is the case of prison inmates, who will only have to go to the vaccination posts once.
He also pointed out the case of the crews of the SATA airline, which “are prevented from flying 48 hours after the inoculation” and will only have to go through the process once.
“Given that the tourist season is already underway, it is also not possible to exclude the possibility that some of these people [tourism professionals] will be vaccinated with this [single-dose] vaccine and have their vaccination process completed faster”.
“Now, above all what is important is to speed up the process,” he added.
As for AstraZeneca’s vaccine, the Azores are working on changing the rules, similarly to what was done by the Directorate-General for Health, so that the second dose is brought forward by four weeks.
16th June 2021
16 new positive cases of covid-19 were diagnosed in the Azores, one on the island of Faial and 15 on the island of São Miguel, following 2,785 tests carried out in the reference laboratories of the Region.
The case diagnosed on the island of Faial, in the parish of Praia do Norte, concerns a traveller, resident, who tested positive on the 6th day.
On the island of São Miguel, one of the new cases concerns a traveller, resident, in Fajã de Baixo, municipality of Ponta Delgada, who tested positive on the 6th day. The other cases concern community transmission. Thus, the municipality of Ribeira Grande had four new cases (one in each of the parishes of Maia, Conceição, Ribeirinha and Matriz). There were five new cases in the municipality of Ponta Delgada (one in each of the parishes of Fajã de Baixo, Arrifes, Pilar da Bretanha, São Pedro and São Roque). There were six new cases in the municipality of Lagoa (three in Água de Pau, two in Santa Cruz and one in Cabouco).
There has been a total of 28 recoveries, and as of today, there were eight patients hospitalised, five in the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital in Ponta Delgada and three in the Santo Espírito Hospital of Terceira Island.
17th June 2021
23 new positive cases of covid-19 were diagnosed in the Azores, one on the island of Terceira and 22 on the island of São Miguel, following 2,417 tests carried out in the reference laboratories of the Region.
The case diagnosed on the island of Terceira, in the parish of Santa Cruz, municipality of Praia da Vitoria, concerns a traveller, non-resident, who tested positive on the 6th day. On the island of São Miguel, all cases concern community transmission.
The municipality of Ribeira Grande registered four new cases (one in each of the parishes of Rabo de Peixe, Conceição, Ribeirinha and Ribeira Seca). There were 13 new cases in the municipality of Ponta Delgada (one in Fajã de Baixo, three in Arrifes, five in São Pedro, one in Fajã de Cima, one in Fenais da Luz and one in São José). There were five new cases in the municipality of Lagoa (two in Santa Cruz, two in Água de Pau and one in Rosário).
A total of 30 recoveries has been registered, and there are eight patients hospitalised, five in the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital in Ponta Delgada and three in the Santo Espírito Hospital of Terceira Island. None of these patients are in intensive care.
18th June 2021
30 new positive cases of covid-19 were diagnosed in the Azores, one on the island of São Jorge, five on the island of Faial and 24 on the island of São Miguel, following 2,417 tests carried out in the reference laboratories of the Region.
On the island of São Jorge, there was a positive case in the municipality of Velas, concerning a traveller, resident, who tested positive on the 6th day, after travelling to the island of São Miguel.
There are five new cases on island of Faial. One refers to a traveller living in the parish of Praia do Norte, municipality of Horta, who tested positive on the 6th day. The other four result from the identification of a primary local transmission chain, also in the parish of Praia do Norte, municipality of Horta, related to the positive cases on 6th day after travel from outside the region.
On the island of São Miguel, all cases concern community transmission. The municipality of Ribeira Grande registered six new cases (two in Rabo de Peixe, two in Conceição and two in Ribeirinha). In the municipality of Vila Franca do Campo, there was one case in Água de Alto. In the municipality of Ponta Delgada, there were 10 new cases (three in Fajã de Baixo, three in Arrifes, one in Pilar da Bretanha, one in São Pedro, one in São Roque and one in Fajã de Cima). There were seven new cases in the municipality of Lagoa (five in Água de Pau, one in Cabouco and one in Ribeira Chã).
It was verified that a positive case, a non-resident citizen who was in the parish of São José, municipality of Ponta Delgada, left the archipelago and is no longer considered a positive case in the Region.
A total of 19 recoveries have been registered, and as of yesterday 10 patients were in hospital, seven at the Divino Espírito Santo Hospital in Ponta Delgada and three at the Santo Espírito Hospital of Terceira Island. None of these patients are in intensive care.
The archipelago currently has 311 active positive cases: 292 on the island of São Miguel, 11 on the island of Terceira, seven on the island of Faial and one on the island of São Jorge. There is a new primary local transmission chain on the island of Faial, in the parish of Praia do Norte, municipality of Horta, following the recent positive cases on the 6th day tests after travels from outside the region. It is the only active local transmission chain in the archipelago and so far, 203 have been extinguished. There are 1,000 people under active surveillance today.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, 6,033 positive cases of covid-19 have been diagnosed in the Azores and 5,554 people recovered from the disease. There were 33 deaths, 80 people who left the archipelago and 55 cases with history of previous cure. Up to date, 549,227 tests have been carried out in the archipelago to detect SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes covid-19 disease.
From December 31st, 2020 to June 14th, 170,906 doses of covid-19 vaccine have been administered in the Azores, corresponding to 101,900 people aged 16 years or more who received the first dose, and 69,006 people who received both doses, under the Regional Vaccination Plan.
“It was agreed that, depending on the speed with which vaccination in these islands advanced, we could take advantage of the availability of the ‘task force’ to also strengthen the vaccination team in São Miguel, which has a more worrying epidemiological expectation”, explained the Azorean chief executive, José Manuel Bolieiro.
In a press release, the Azorean public company states that “the majority of flights planned between the Azores” and Canada “will be maintained” but, as of June 24th, eight flights will be cancelled between Ponta Delgada and Toronto and two connections between Praia da Vitória and that Canadian city.
“We believe that by the end of July, if things don’t go faster, we could have 70% or more of people vaccinated on every island, which means that by August 15th will be, at most, the predictable date for a return to normality throughout the Autonomous Region of the Azores”, said the president of the Special Commission for Monitoring the Fight against the Pandemic, Gustavo Tato Borges, at a press conference in Angra do Heroísmo.
In São Miguel, there was one case referring to a non-resident passenger, with a positive test on arrival, and another two to resident passengers, with a positive test on the 6th and 12th day. The rest are in the context of community transmission. Thus, the municipality of Ribeira Grande registers nine new cases (three in Ribeira Seca, two in Rabo de Peixe, two in Matriz, one in Maia and one in Ribeirinha). In the municipality of Ponta Delgada there are 23 new cases (seven in Pilar da Brittany, seven in Fajã de Cima, four in São Pedro, one in Fajã de Baixo and one in Ajuda da Brittany). In the municipality of Nordeste there are two new cases in Santo António de Nordestinho, in the municipality of Lagoa there are four new cases (two in Santa Cruz, one in Rosário and one in Cabouco) and in the municipality of Vila Franca do Campo there was a new case, in Saint Michael.