The Secretary-General of the Communist Party of China this Saturday described the British government’s decision to remove Portugal from the “green list” of international travel, and called for the country’s vaccination process to be “faster”.
“The tourism sector has faced an unprecedented situation. The UK government’s decision to impose new trips to Portugal is reprehensible”, Jerónimo de Sousa, said, during a CDU rally with the party’s candidate, Claudia Marinho, to the Viana do Castelo City Council.
On Tuesday, Transport Minister Grant Shapps confirmed that Portugal would leave the “green list” of international travel under the supervision of the British government due to the discovery of new variables and an increase in the number of infections in recent weeks.
Shapps said the government wants to ensure the country does not import any other variables that jeopardize the decontamination plan, the fourth phase scheduled for June 21, when all restrictions are expected to be lifted.
Countries on the “yellow list” are subject to stricter restrictions, namely a 10-day quarantine on arrival in the UK and two PCR tests on the second and eighth days, while the “green list” exempts travelers arriving in the UK from being quarantined. British territory.
In a statement, the British government noted that according to the European database GISAID, 68 cases of delta variant have been identified in Portugal (B1.617.2, first identified in India), “including some cases of delta variant with additive, potentially harmful.” “.
On Thursday night, National Institute of Health microbiologist Dr. Ricardo Jorge (INSA) Joao Paulo Gomez said that in Portugal only 12 cases of the mutation of the so-called Indian variant of covid-19 have been detected.
“The consequences are not only in terms of tourism, but also in negative effects on the Portuguese immigrant community who reside and work there, as well as on the many Britons who have residence in our country,” Jeronimo de Sousa alerted.
In a speech of over 20 minutes long delivered in the Viana do Castelo public park, it featured about 200 people, some seated on chairs set up by the party in the central aisle of the space, others distributed throughout the green. The Secretary-General of the People’s Guard said that the impact of the British decision “highlights in the economic plan, especially in tourism, because of its weight and importance, the risks of dependence associated with reduced diversification in the region.” Issuance of tourism markets.
“This situation makes the country and its sovereignty vulnerable, which is something that needs to be recovered,” he noted.
The communist leader also defended “the need to take measures regarding the vaccination of the population, overcoming the current restrictions imposed by the European Union. And the Portuguese government accepted it to buy more of the vaccines already indicated by the World Health Organization (WHO) thus ensuring a speedy vaccination for all.”
He criticized that “this stubborn insistence to limit the purchase of vaccines to certain monopoly pharmaceutical groups is unacceptable.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has killed at least 371,4923 people worldwide, resulting in more than 172 million infections, according to a balance by AFP.
In Portugal, 17,032 people have died out of 852,034 confirmed cases, according to the latest bulletin from the Directorate General of Health.
The disease is transmitted by the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, which was discovered in late 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
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