The tourists are coming, and there are hardly any corona restrictions in the country: Portugal is recording increasing numbers of infections.
In the popular holiday destination of Portugal, the corona numbers are rising again due to the spread of the more contagious omicron subvariant BA.5. According to the National Health Institute INSA, around 87 percent of all new infections registered are now due to this variant.
The seven-day incidence of new infections has quadrupled since mid-April to around 1800 most recently. For comparison: In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) gave the value on Wednesday morning as 207.
Despite the high vaccination rate of 87 percent in Portugal, the number of hospital patients and mortality related to Covid-19 has recently increased. There are hardly any corona restrictions in the country with a good ten million inhabitants. Masks are only compulsory in public transport, nursing homes and hospitals. However, the authorities advise voluntarily wearing a mouth and nose protector wherever there is an increased risk of infection.
According to the RKI, the omicron subvariant BA.5 was not widespread in Germany until mid-May. According to the most recent RKI weekly report from May 23, their share of Sars-CoV-2 infections in calendar week 19 (May 9-15) nationwide was 2.5 percent. However, the spread is increasing: in calendar week 17 the share of BA.5 was still 0.6 percent, one week later (calendar week 18) it was 1.2 percent.
