"There were heads of state who themselves spoke about their situations, saying that they fell short of what they would like and our situation is enviable", said Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.

“Even countries with very high vaccination rates – I give the example of Austria – spoke of much lower percentages than ours and others didn't even speak because the percentage was much lower and everyone asked: 'but how is it possible for Portugal to have been, apparently, seen from the outside, as so bad and now it is doing so well'”, he added.

Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa added that, despite the data "being relative", there is "one thing that is not relative, which is that vaccination has made the difference".

“From the moment that mass vaccination started, it was also mass that the beginning of the change took place”.

Portugal is currently the country in the world with the highest population coverage rate with complete vaccination against covid-19, according to the statistics website Our World in Data.

The country has surpassed Malta in recent days and registers 81.82 percent of the population with a complete vaccination against the infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

However, if the population data with the immunization process still incomplete are included, Portugal drops to the second position in the world, with 5.19 percent of the population still to complete the vaccination, increasing the total vaccination coverage (first and second doses) to 87.01 percent.