The Portuguese government announced on Thursday the reopening of nurseries and primary schools from Monday, the first step in its plan to lift the measures taken to fight against Covid-19.
The reopening
"must be gradual, cautious and tricky,"
warned Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, who presented a deconfinement device in several stages during a press conference.
Read also: Covid-19: Portugal lost three quarters of its foreign tourists in 2020
Starting Monday, some non-essential businesses such as bookstores, hair salons and libraries will also reopen.
Two weeks later, it will be the turn of colleges, café terraces and restaurants, as well as monuments and museums.
High schools, universities, theaters and dining halls, with a limit of four people per table, will reopen in mid-April, while large events will be allowed from May 3, with some restrictions.
"Today we are clearly under the alert threshold",
welcomed Antonio Costa, specifying however that the device would be
"reassessed every two weeks".
Containment - that is to say the obligation to stay at home except for the purchase of basic necessities and a few other exemptions -, teleworking and traffic restrictions between municipalities remain for the moment maintained.
Spared by the first wave of the pandemic, Portugal had become in January, apart from the micro-states, the country hardest hit by the epidemic due to the coronavirus, compared to its population of approximately 10 million inhabitants.
The explosion in the number of new cases, favored by the arrival of the British variant, more contagious, had caused a saturation of many hospitals, especially in the Lisbon region.
This situation had forced him to impose a second general confinement in mid-January and to close schools a week later.
