New corona alarm in Lisbon: The Portuguese government is sealing off the capital for the entire coming weekend. The delta variant is spreading there at great speed.
Lisbon will be sealed off for around two and a half days due to a worrying increase in corona infection cases. From Friday afternoon (4 p.m. CEST) to Monday morning (6 a.m. CEST), the 2.8 million residents of the Portuguese capital are only allowed to leave the greater Lisbon area for good reason, as the government announced on Thursday. Foreigners will only be allowed to enter in exceptional cases.
With 928 new infections within 24 hours, Lisbon recorded its highest value since February 19 on Thursday. That was around 75 percent of all cases registered in Portugal (1233). In the “Area Metropolitana” of Lisbon only around 27 percent of all 10.3 million citizens of Portugal live.
Delta variant in Lisbon: “Measures are essential”
In Lisbon, the delta variant of the corona virus, which was initially discovered in India, is currently spreading relatively strongly, said Presidential Minister Mariana Vieira da Silva. “It is not easy to take such measures, but we thought they were essential so that the current situation in Lisbon does not spread to the whole country,” she said.
The former hotspot Portugal had successfully fought against Corona in winter and temporarily had the lowest values in Europe in spring. The state of emergency to contain the pandemic therefore ended on May 1 after five and a half months. However, the nationwide 14-day incidence rose from 55 to 87 within a few weeks, according to the EU authority ECDC.
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