“It is natural that as our epidemic has fewer people with symptoms, fewer individuals will be tested than before,” explained Graça Freitas, during a press conference to update information about the covid- 19.

Asked about the smaller number of tests that are currently being carried out in Portugal, the director-general clarified that the international guidelines are aimed at testing, with priority, all people who present symptoms, which are currently less.

On the other hand, she adds, close contacts of all infected patients are also under surveillance, but even in these cases the relevance of the tests is relative.

"The test, even if it is negative, implies that close contact with a patient must, as a precaution, spend 14 days in isolation, so it is not even the test that determines what we are going to do next", stressed the director-general considering that “the country has always been very assertive in this testing policy”.

On the subject, the Assistant Secretary of State and Health, Jamila Madeira, also said that the country maintains a strong testing capacity and that this capacity will be activated whenever necessary.

Jamila Madeira also referred that the testing policy was reinforced in the initial phase of the de-definition period, under a logic of mass screening, and that, currently, this policy follows the evolution of the number of cases.

At the same press conference, the Secretary of State recalled the purchase of two million flu vaccines for next winter, stressing that it will be "the biggest purchase ever".

The measure aims to safeguard that more Portuguese, in a circumstance of greater risk, will be protected next winter. “We are mainly focusing on the most vulnerable, she said.