I belong to a group on Facebook which is dedicated to a holiday town/destination in the Algarve where I have had a property for 15 years. There I described my experience in the first week of my current stay and received a barrage of abuse in return.
I witnessed this silly and seriously stupid business of tapping knuckles together in bars, restaurants and on the streets. Touching equals transmission and people were certainly not 2 metres apart when knocking knuckles together. I saw a waiter do this with a customer and immediately subconsciously rubbed his palms over his knuckles before serving drinks and even hugging customers. This would smear any virus all over the place.
The gist of the majority of negative responses was if I do not like what I see I should go away. Several recent visitors doubted I was talking about the same town they had visited recently and were in denial such practice exists here. I saw what I saw. If members of this particular Facebook community are representative of the public in general, I believe that there is a serious attitude problem towards social distancing in parts of Portugal.
Where will this lead to? I think I know and I have more than average knowledge of microbiology.
Dr Mel Jones,
Retired UK doctor