At the meeting that brings together epidemiologists, public health specialists and political leaders at Infarmed's headquarters in Lisbon, the representative of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) stressed the positive evolution of the pandemic over the past few weeks and added that all regions of the country are in a phase of declining incidence.

“There was a consolidation of this trend and a very significant decrease in the incidence. There is an incidence of 322 cases per 100,000 inhabitants and a very steep downward weekly variation. There are areas of the country with particularly high incidence, such as Lisbon and the Vale do Tejo, Alentejo and Centro, between 480 and 960 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, but there are already vast areas of the territory with an incidence of less than 240 cases per 100,000 inhabitants”, he stressed.

In terms of age, André Peralta Santos noted that “the downward trend of all age groups” remains, with the population aged 80 and over being still “the group with the highest incidence at this time”, despite being “reduced and with levels of incidence at the level of November”.

On the other hand, although slower in the intensive care units, in terms of hospitalisations in the wards and in intensive care units “there is also a consolidation of the descent”. The DGS expert then focused the analysis on the regions of the North and Lisbon and the Vale do Tejo, highlighting the better performance in this third wave in the North, with a mortality rate lower than the national numbers, unlike the capital region.

André Peralta Santos presented a table with the numbers of the geographical dispersion of the SARS-CoV-2 variant identified in the United Kingdom, presenting different estimates of prevalence in the different regions: North, with 34.2 percent; Center, with 32.2 percent; Lisbon and Vale do Tejo, with 56.6 percent; Alentejo, with 67.6 percent; and Algarve, with 40 percent, although there were also several confidence intervals for these projections.