For hardly any other country, the pandemic means such a roller coaster ride as it does for Portugal.
If you thought you had escaped the worst a short time ago, the situation is currently worsening again drastically.
Lisbon - When hundreds of German vacationers in Portugal packed their suitcases ahead of time, the Algarve began to shiver despite temperatures of almost 30 degrees.
Joao Fernandes, head of the regional tourism authority, speaks of a "heavy blow", a "cold shower".
The reason for his concern: The Robert Koch Institute has classified the country as a virus variant area - and so a number of German tourists are hurrying back home in order to be home before Tuesday and thus avoid a quarantine.
A few weeks ago, Great Britain had blacklisted the southern EU country and caused consternation - nowhere are more holidaymakers coming to Portugal.
Fernandes now fears that Switzerland, Austria and many others will follow the German example, as he tells the radio station TSF.
The number of patients is increasing
But it's not just the hospitality industry that is concerned. As the hotels empty, the hospitals keep getting full. The number of patients with Covid-19 rose again by 30 to 477 on Sunday. 116 of them were in the intensive care unit. These values were last so high in mid-April. According to the EU health authority ECDC, Portugal now has the highest value of all 30 countries recorded with a 14-day incidence of a good 124 infections per 100,000 inhabitants. For comparison: Germany is 25.
The situation in the greater Lisbon area is particularly worrying, where around two thirds of all nationwide infections have been recorded for weeks - although only about 27 percent of the 10.3 million citizens of Portugal live there.
The particularly contagious Delta variant already accounts for more than 70 percent of all new cases in Lisbon, and the trend is rising sharply.
"A rollercoaster of emotions"
While the dynamic in the number of cases is high, one thing remains as usual: for hardly any other country the pandemic means such a roller coaster ride as it does for Portugal.
“A rollercoaster of emotions.
Sometimes we're the best, sometimes the really bad guys, ”says cafe operator Nuno in Lisbon.
"Maybe we get too careless with good news - and very disciplined with bad news."
In fact, Portugal was initially praised in the sky as a “model student”, while neighboring Spain, for example, quickly sank into the corona vortex at the beginning of the pandemic.
But the tide turned: In winter, Portugal suddenly had more new infections and deaths than any other country in the world in relation to its population.
The Bundeswehr sent doctors and paramedics into the country.
In May the infection values were again among the lowest in Europe - and now the numbers are going up and the mood is going down.
Several German tour operators have now canceled their tours in the country for several weeks.
At TUI Germany this applies to bookings with a planned arrival up to and including July 31st.
DER Touristik canceled its trips to Portugal until July 13th.
16,500 UK football fans in May
Whose fault is it? For the opposition and many of the media there is no question: the left government. Prime Minister António Costa caught her anger with the decision to move the Champions League final between Manchester City and Chelsea from London to Porto at the end of May - and to let around 16,500 British football fans into the country on the streets of the port wine metropolis not only let the mask discipline slip, but sometimes got drunk and fought uncontrollably, while the Portuguese still had to observe a lot of restrictions.
“A shame!”, Opposition leader Rui Rio complained about the hustle and bustle in Porto.
Critical voices have also been raised abroad that see a connection with the skyrocketing number of cases in Lisbon.
The socialist Costa admitted: "Not everything went well." But he does not want to have made mistakes.
On the sidelines of the EU summit last week, he rather warned the European neighbors of the rampant Delta mutant: "I'm afraid Portugal is not the last border this variant crosses." In August, it will account for 90 percent of all new infections in the EU .
Joao Fernandes from the tourism authority looks to the future - and puts his hopes in autumn and the Germans: “They come to the Algarve especially in September and October.
Until then, a lot can change. ”Dpa
