According to the DGS bulletin, 395 patients are currently hospitalised in wards, two less than on Wednesday, and 104 in intensive care units, six less.

The number of hospitalisations is close to that recorded on 9 September when Portugal had 391 hospitalised with the new coronavirus.

With regard to intensive care units, today's figures are close to those recorded on September 30 and the first eight days of October, with values that ranged between 105 and 115 hospitalisations in these units.

There are 24,764 active cases in Portugal, 111 more than on Wednesday and the number of contacts under surveillance by the health authorities increased by 755 to 22,436.

According to the bulletin, released today, since the beginning of the pandemic Portugal has accounted for 832,891 confirmed cases and 16,956 deaths.

Of the four deaths recorded, one occurred in Lisbon and Tagus Valley, two in the North and one in the Centre region.

Regarding the number of new cases, today's figures are similar to those recorded in recent weeks, with daily oscillations.

The data also reveals that 521 people have been reported recovered, bringing the total number since the start of the pandemic in Portugal in March 2020 to 791,171.

According to the latest DGS data, Portugal currently has 2,711,174 people vaccinated against Covid-19, of which 696,904 are already immunised with both doses.

The transmissibility index (Rt) of the SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus in Portugal, according to the latest data released on Wednesday, has dropped to 0.98 while the incidence of cases of infection per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days has risen to 72.7, according to data released today.

The previous figures for these indicators, released on Monday, showed an Rt of 1 and an incidence of 71.8 cases per 100,000 population.

Rt and incidence data are updated on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

In the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region, 203 new infections have been reported, with 315,278 cases and 7,189 deaths so far.

The North region has 269 new infections by SARS-CoV-2 and since the beginning of the pandemic has counted 334,515 cases of infection and 5,333 deaths.

These two regions now account for 74.2 percent of all new infections.

In the Centre region 58 more cases were registered, accumulating 118,294 infections and 3,009 deaths.

In Alentejo 30 more cases were reported, totalling 29,655 infections and 970 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.

In the Algarve region, today's bulletin reveals that 37 new cases were registered, accumulating 21,475 infections and 356 deaths.

In the Autonomous Region of Madeira, 17 new cases have been registered, accounting for 9,053 infections and 68 deaths due to Covid-19 since March 2020.

The Azores now have 22 new cases and count 4,621 cases and 31 deaths since the start of the pandemic, according to the DGS.

The regional authorities of the Azores and Madeira release their data daily, which may not coincide with the information released in the DGS bulletin.

The new coronavirus has already infected at least 377,796 men and 454,791 women in Portugal, DGS data show, according to which there are 304 cases of unknown gender, which are under investigation as this information is not provided automatically.

Of the total number of fatalities, 8,907 were men and 8,049 women.

The highest number of deaths continues to be concentrated in the elderly over 80 years old, followed by the age group between 70 and 79 years old.

Of the total deaths, 11,160 were people aged over 80, 3,607 were aged between 70 and 79, and 1,518 were aged between 60 and 69.

The pandemic caused at least 3,060,859 deaths worldwide, resulting from more than 143.8 million cases of infection, according to a report by the French agency AFP.