Prime Minister Antonio Costa is encouraging the Portuguese to visit shops and restaurants after the government eased confinement measures that helped limit the coronavirus outbreak while damaging the economy.
Last week the Government announced the rules for the use of public beaches, which are set to open on June 6th. On the Algarve’s beaches, ‘assistants’ will be present to ensure that the rules are observed and "problems are avoided", revealed António Miguel Pina, Mayor of Olhão.
The Algarve has a “quite good” epidemiological situation and “everything seems to be under control at the moment”, but Graça Freitas, Director-General of Health, considers that "it is more prudent not to lighten up" certain measures to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
The land borders between Portugal and Spain will remain closed until 15 June due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Portuguese Council of Ministers’ resolution published last Wednesday (13 May).
The owner of a plot of land in Ancão, within in the territory of the Ria Formosa Natural Park, has been slated for cutting down “countless” pines, some of them centuries old, under the Municipal Plan for the Defense of the Forest against Fires.
What many already expected has been officially confirmed this week: FATACIL will not be going to take place next August,” revealed Lagoa’s Informa newspaper.
PAN have released a statement revealing that "tonnes of construction and demolition waste" were recently dumped within a protected area of the Ria Formosa Natural Park, under the pretence of building a ramp for trucks to be able to easily access a small nearby loading dock, used to take supplies to and from the Ria Formosa islands off the coast of Olhão.
Spain, with its high coronavirus death toll and ongoing confinement, regards neighbouring Portugal with a combination of envy and perplexity. Located in the same peninsula, Portugal has had a little over 1,000 deaths for a population of 10.2 million, compared with Spain’s more than 26,000 deaths for a population of 47 million. Portugal, with around five times fewer deaths per million inhabitants (111 versus 569), did not impose a mandatory quarantine, instead framing it as a civic duty that was widely observed. And although bars and restaurants did close, the economy did not grind to a halt.
