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The pandemic has Portugal firmly under control
Photo: Jorge Mantilla / NurPhoto / picture alliance
On one of the central squares of Lisbon stands stone, a lion at his side, the Marquis de Pombal, the savior of the city when everything was in ruins after the earthquake on November 1st, 1755. It was not only a seismological earthquake, this greatest natural catastrophe since time immemorial.
"Bury the dead, look after the survivors!" That was the watchword of the future Marquis, at that time still a First Minister of the King.
It became the program of pragmatism: no complaining and certainly no praying, but doing what has to be done.
The Marquis de Pombal became the epitome of stiff-upperlip and post-apocalyptic politics and has well deserved his statue.
A quarter of the population was killed.
Most died not from the earthquake, but from a second and third wave of devastation, from fires and epidemics.
The waters of the Tejo had completely withdrawn, and many survivors fled from the rubble to the quay or to the ships lying on the bottom there.
But then the wave came, fifteen meters high and extremely fast, one could almost say: exponentially fast.
Portugal currently has the highest seven-day incidence in Europe with 816 cases
Perhaps the descendants of the Marquis will one day be erected by grateful citizens.
It doesn't look like it, however.
Nowhere in the EU are the incidence figures higher or the hospitals as at their limit as they are in Portugal at the moment.
"In contrast to the Marquis de Pombal, we live in a democracy," Foreign Minister Augusto Santo Silva told SPIEGEL.
"It is hard to imagine forbidding people in Portugal to visit their families over the holidays."
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Man with mask: Portugal's Foreign Minister Augusto Santo Silva
Photo: Pedro Fiuza / imago images / ZUMA Wire
Pombal was able to rule through authoritarianism, would probably have closed schools and cafes, issued travel bans, strictly controlled the airports, i.e. everything that the left-wing government alliance of António Costa shrank from: Just no second strict lockdown, that was the government's attitude before Christmas and probably also of most of the citizens.
It won't come, the wave.
The Tagus will stay dry.
But then not only came the second, but a third, even stronger wave.
Portugal currently has the highest seven-day incidence in Europe with 816 cases.
There are rural areas with incidences well over a thousand.
"We had time to prepare last March," says Santo Silva.
“There were lessons from Italy and Spain.
But now we are at the forefront ourselves and we are dealing with the British Varante. «In Lisbon, 50 percent of the new infections are already attributed to the mutant from England.
"Our health system is under great stress"
Intensive care patients had to wait up to twenty hours in the ambulance vehicles at Garcia de Orfa hospital in Almada, on the other bank of the Tagus.
The situation in the north of the country is particularly serious.
In a hospital in Leira, according to the state broadcaster RTP, over a hundred doctors and nurses are currently infected or in quarantine.
"Our health system is under great stress," says Minister Santo Silva.
“But it didn't collapse.
We have around a thousand intensive care beds in Portugal that now have to be redistributed. "
The whole country has gone into self-quarantine, the borders with Spain largely closed and air traffic shut down.
One machine, however, will land on the "Aeroporto Humberto Delgado" today, an aid team from the German Armed Forces with eight doctors, eighteen nurses and hygiene specialists.
There are also 50 ventilators, 150 hospital beds, infusion devices and other medical equipment.
"Urgent personal and material support"
SPIEGEL had already reported on Friday about the request for help and the team's work.
Prime Minister Costa had until Monday evening to admit it publicly.
"We just wanted to know for sure what we would need," says Foreign Minister Santos Silva.
In addition, Portugal had by no means asked for help: “We only accepted offers of help from our European neighbors, as is customary in such exceptional situations.
That's a difference."
There is a letter from the Portuguese Minister of Health Marta Temido dated January 25th to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, in which she asked "for urgent personal and material support," according to the Federal Ministry of Defense.
"Bury the dead, vaccinate the living"
The Bundeswehr team will initially stay in Lisbon for three weeks, then possibly be replaced by teams from other EU countries.
Austria has already admitted intensive care patients, Spain and Luxembourg have also agreed to help.
There is a particular shortage of medical staff in Portugal.
Too many trained workers have migrated to Great Britain, France and Spain since the financial crisis in 2008.
On Monday, the country started the second vaccination phase for the very old and over 50 years old with special pre-existing conditions.
So far, around 400,000 vaccine doses have been delivered to the ten million inhabitants, 270,000 people have received the first vaccination and 70,000 have already received the second.
Just as the Marquis de Pombal would have recommended: "Bury the dead, vaccinate the living," and accept help without hesitation.
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