“The circuits are separate. There is an area dedicated to covid-19 and one for people who do not have the infection”, stated the director general of Health, Graça Freitas, at a press conference at the Ministry of Health, in Lisbon.

Graça Freitas stressed that, in addition to urgent situations, “pregnant women should continue to monitor the pregnancy, children should continue to be vaccinated and the baby's foot test should continue to be carried out”.

"There are many things here that we have to continue to do, under penalty of getting even worse without having covid-19", she said, appealing to "very good sense" by the users.

"What we are asking people for, and this has been very well matched, is that if they do not have an urgent need to resort to an emergency service, they should not resort," she said.

However, to people who need to go to hospitals and health centres and are afraid to do so because they could be infected, she appealed: “go and go with ease”.