The vaccination certificate that in recent months had been a passport on the mobile phone screen for access to almost everything is needed only in four groups of situations: air or sea travel, visits to hospitals, health centres and residences for the elderly, major cultural, sporting and corporate events, and bars and nightclubs.
For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, it is no longer mandatory to wear masks in restaurants and small shops.
The lifting of restrictions takes effect from 1st of October, when the country will move from the state of contingency to the state of alert, with COVID becoming equated to other contagious diseases, because it is considered that the vaccine has installed group immunity in the country.
One of the restrictive measures that falls is the obligation, to enter restaurants and hotels, present the digital certificate COVID-19 – this certificate is available, in digital format, on the smartphone of all vaccinated, currently 86% of the Portuguese population.
The bars and nightclubs (closed for a year and a half) can reopen from 1st of October, being, as has already been said, the entry linked to the presentation of the certificate or negative test to COVID-19.
In restaurants, gyms, tourist establishments and accommodation, this proof is no longer necessary (neither certificate nor test).
The mask is then mandatory only in places where the population is most at risk, such as nursing homes or hospitals; places with high population influx, such as large commercial areas; and places where people stay for long periods of time, such as the concert halls or the classrooms.
In January 2021, with the escalation of the Delta variant, Portugal had in several days more than 300 deaths every 24 hours and hospitals went into saturation with thousands hospitalized by COVID. There are now 400 hospitalized and the number of deaths per day ranges between 5 and 10.
Epidemiologists are repeating that in a country that is a bridge between continents, such as Portugal, it is utopia to think of deaths by COVID reduced to zero. As long as much of the world remains unvaccinated, contagions will continue. But those vaccinated, although they can be infected, should only contract a mild form of the disease.
