According to a report by DN, in the last week, Europe recorded 1.4 million infections by Covid-19 and 3,250 deaths. The numbers were announced by Richard Peabody, head of the WHO/Europe High Pathogenic Threat Team to Lusa, who even said: "We cannot afford to be complacent at the moment."

The WHO/Europe leader took advantage of the occasion to highlight that the increase in the number of infections has been felt since the beginning of October, and with a particular incidence in Germany, France and Italy, which should oblige all countries to prepare for a possible increase in hospitalisations. Richard Peabody also justified this scenario with the fact that we are approaching winter, knowing that a worsening of respiratory diseases in this period is already normal.

Portugal subvariants

In Portugal, for now, and according to the analysis made to DN by Professor Carlos Antunes, who is part of the team at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon that has been dedicated to modelling the evolution of Covid-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, "the situation seems to be stable, but surveillance is needed through disease severity factors, due to the impact that the new subvariants, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, may have on our population".

Carlos Antunes underlined the fact that it can be “considered that Portugal is in a controlled situation” at all levels, but warns that, in recent weeks, there has been “a slight increase in intensive care admissions and deaths”. It is true that "this increase is being mobilised mainly by a single region of the country, Lisbon and Vale do Tejo (LVT), although in the last week the Central Region also began to show signs of this increase", but it is necessary to "continue with surveillance".

According to the professor at the Faculty of Sciences, from October 2nd to 17th, the general number of admissions rose from 390 to 480, and the number of beds in Intensive Care went from 22 to 38. A situation that he believes still has to do with the effect of Ómicron's subvariant, BA.5, which is still the dominant one in the country. "The increase in infections started in younger people, still in September, due to the beginning of school, but two to three weeks later it spread to the rest of the population, leading to this increase, but without great repercussion in terms of deaths".

The data released on the 24th by the Directorate-General for Health, referring to Sunday, the 23rd, revealed the existence of 468 cases and 11 deaths, although the daily average is 6.5 deaths.