Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke to journalists after participating in a technical session on the epidemiological situation of Covid-19 in Portugal, at the invitation of the Prime Minister, António Costa, in the auditorium of Infarmed - National Authority for Medicines and Health Products, in Lisbon .
Asked if the experts intend to keep the forecast of 14 April as the date for the peak of the epidemiological curve in Portugal, the head of state noted that “it is not possible to make certain predictions” and compared the Covid-19 pandemic to “a spring” that you are trying to contain with “very firm pressure”.
”There has been, with this pressure on the spring, a result that is visible in the numbers: the growth is less exponential, less marked than expected. This naturally means that the pressure on the health system is less, the number of those contaminated has not grown to the level expected and the peak may shift “, he explained.
”It is a more moderate curve, and the peak, the stabilisation moment, which lasts for a while, may be a little after 14 April,” he added.
According to the President of the Republic, “the Portuguese people are helping to make the curve different from the curve of other countries, comparing the number, not only of contaminated cases, but also of interned, and interned in intensive care, and also the number of deaths recorded so far”.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, added that other countries are looking “with great interest” at Portugal in relation to Covid-19, specifically in the treatment of infected people at home and in the capacity of system response.
Rebelo de Sousa replied to journalists after being asked if he has been in contact with other heads of state from affected countries, at the end of a session in the auditorium of Infarmed - National Authority for Medicines and Health Products, in Lisbon, which lasted more than three hours, about the “Epidemiological situation of Covid-19 in Portugal”, an initiative of the Government, which also included the presence of the Prime Minister, António Costa, party leaders, employers’ confederations and union structures.
”It is possible to verify this idea: we are facing a global pandemic with a very clear European impact. Even those who at some point came to think that this could be from some countries, some societies and not all, are beginning to understand and take action even when they are at a later stage of the process “, he pointed out.
According to Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, other countries “look at the Portuguese case with great interest because the Portuguese case has already taken into account the lessons of other cases which started earlier and can serve as an example in what they want to do in the future”.
The President of the Republic gave the example of “the fact that infected people are being treated at home” in Portugal, since “there were other country experiences that followed different paths”.
”Another example is also the form of restraint that has allowed, with the enormous dedication of the health professionals, a dimension and a response capacity, which is being adjusted, of the health system. And they are learning from it”, he added.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa confirmed that he maintained contact “with heads of state in very different situations, such as in the Baltics or Eastern Europe”.
”They are different because the outbreak started later in several of them and has had a lower incidence for reasons of population size and the composition of that population. A population, in many cases, younger on average than the Portuguese population or even the Italian population, which is older than ours “, he explained.
The new Coronavirus, responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic, has already infected more than 386,000 people worldwide, of whom about 17,000 have died.
Portugal began a state of emergency from 12pm on Thursday, 19 March which runs until 11.59pm on 2 April and could potentially be extended.