According to the "red lines" of the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) and the National Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo Jorge (INSA), this figure of 62% for mainland Portugal is higher than that seen in the previous week, which was at 56%.

“There was a growing number of patients hospitalised in intensive care units”, with the Centre region showing the highest occupation, followed by the North and Algarve, the report said.

On Wednesday, the Centre had an occupation in intensive care of 103% (35 patients) of the alert level, the North of 76% (57), the Algarve of 74% (17), Lisbon and Vale do Tejo of 43% (44) and the Alentejo 25% (five).

The alert level defined corresponds to 75% of the number of beds available for Covid-19 patients in intensive care for mainland Portugal.

The management of the capacity of the National Health Service presupposes a network response which, in the case of intensive care medicine, means that regional needs can be met with responses from other regions with greater capacity, the document states.

With regard to mortality from Covid-19, the risk analysis of the pandemic advances that, on Wednesday, it reached 23.6 deaths in 14 days per one million inhabitants, which corresponds to an increase of 8% relatively to the previous week and an increasing trend.

“This figure is above the threshold of 20 deaths in 14 days a million inhabitants defined by the European Center for Disease Control (ECDC), indicating a high impact of the epidemic on mortality”, warns the report.