The number of Covid-19 infections is increasing in Portugal, after reaching historic lows at the end of June. The experts interviewed by ECO point out that the rise in infections is being driven by the emergence of the EG.5 variant, but argue that there is no reason to be alarmed given that, for the majority of the population, the risk of developing serious illness is currently much lower compared to three years ago.

“The increase in cases in Portugal is not that dramatic”, says Manuel Carmo Gomes, epidemiologist and professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon, who has been monitoring Covid since the beginning of the pandemic, noting that at the end of June, the country even registered “minimum values” of infections. If on July 20th, the average was 185 cases per day, the numbers were “increasing” and “on August 17th we had an average of 400 notifications per day”, he highlights, stressing that these data should be higher given that large part of the population no longer reports cases.