Britain is set to make a decision this Friday on whether to impose a 14-day quarantine on arrivals from Portugal after cases of COVID-19 began to rise around the Central and Northern parts of the country, the UK’s health minister, Matt Hancock, said today.
"The news of a possible closure of the air corridor is already causing a great deal of concern, particularly among customers who are currently in the Algarve, with some asking to hasten their return to England," the Portuguese Hospitality Association (AHT) spokesman João Soares told press today.
The Algarve’s dams only have enough water available to last until the end of the year, if there is no significant rainfall over the next few months, the Permanent Drought Monitoring Commission revealed in its most recent report.
With just a few days before Portuguese students return to face-to-face classes and thousands of adults to the workplace, the Director-General of Health and Minister of Health warned today that with this greater movement of people Portugal must prepare for a rise in COVID-19 cases in the autumn and winter season.
As coronavirus cases in Portugal go up and down, fears are growing that Britain will reimpose a quarantine for people travelling home from the country. It has been less than two weeks since Britain, Portugal’s leading source of tourism, lifted a 14-day self-isolation rule for travellers arriving from Portugal.
Britain will keep its quarantine policy under review, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman told press today, but declined to comment on media reports that Portugal will be added back onto the government’s no-go list due to rising case numbers around Lisbon and Northern Portugal.
Fugitive U.S. intelligence leaker Edward Snowden will be one of 45 witnesses testifying in Portugal in defence of Rui Pinto, whose trove of 70 million documents exposed the dodgy dealings of many European soccer clubs, Pinto’s lawyer said this Monday.
Portugal’s record economic contraction in the second quarter saw exports of goods and services plunge by 40% as the coronavirus eroded revenue from overseas tourists, a breakdown of official GDP data showed on Monday.
