“These measures are in line with what our expectations were and even the suggestion we made to the Minister of the Environment, in the sense that the Government and the Directorate-General for Health define a broad set of rules and leave the way to do them comply with the mayors of each territory ”, the president of AMAL, António Pina, told Lusa.

According to the president of the association that aggregates the 16 municipalities in the district of Faro, the rules “for an efficient use of the beaches in safety, are perfectly feasible, because they are not very different from those we have in our daily lives, in this new way to live ”due to the covid-19 pandemic.

For António Pina, the municipalities now have the responsibility to manage, in conjunction with the Maritime Authority and the Portuguese Environment Agency of each district, “a set of rules, in order to comply with normality and to help users of beaches to understand how you have to enjoy the sand and guarantee the safety of everyone ”.

"In the Algarve, mayors are available to help, because the measures are part of this new way of living, such as the restriction to the practice of group sports, social distance and groups with a high number of people", he stressed.

The mayor of Olhão (PS) also added that the Algarve municipalities are available for hiring people, “in order to help, explain the rules and organize the permanence of people on the beach, deepening the eyes for an effective surveillance safety rules ”.

In the opinion of António Pina, the creation of a computer application, announced by the Government, “is also essential and extremely useful”, because it will allow people to have timely knowledge, “right at home, of the state of the beaches and can be forwarded to beaches with fewer people ”.

"We are confident in a peaceful bathing season, because we believe in the common sense of the people and the Portuguese are known in the world for their common sense and the ability to respect this new standard", concluded the President of AMAL.

According to the deconfiguration plan released after Friday's meeting of the Council of Ministers, during the bathing season, beach users must ensure a physical distance of 1.5 meters between different groups and a distance of three meters between hats. sun, awnings or stems, from June 6th.

Sports activities with two or more people are prohibited on the beaches, except for nautical activities, surf lessons and similar sports.

In awnings, stems and beach huts, as a rule, each person or group can only rent in the morning (until 1:30 pm) or afternoon (after 2:00 pm) ", with a maximum of five users.

Unlike previous years when the bathing season started on June 1, this year begins on "June 6", due to the pandemic situation of the covid-19, determined the Council of Ministers.

Regarding the state of occupation of the beaches, there will be “traffic light type signs”, in which the green color indicates low occupancy (1/3), yellow is high occupancy (2/3) and red means full occupancy (3/3) .

According to the Government, information on the state of occupation of the beaches will be “updated continuously, in real time”, namely in the ‘Info beach’ application and on the website of the Portuguese Environment Agency (APA).