The coronavirus epidemic has not yet affected Portugal, while most European countries have registered cases on their territory, but the DGS (Portuguese Health Management) has released its forecasts on the spread of the virus. And they are pretty cold on the back. Indeed, Graça Freitas, the Portuguese director general of health, today released the authorities' estimates: the coronavirus could infect a million Portuguese. Among those infected, about 200,000 will suffer severely from the disease. Lisbob, the expatriate assistant in Portugal, tells you all about the DGS forecast on the coronavirus outbreak.
1 million Portuguese infected with coronavirus: the DGS reveals its forecasts
10% of the infected population, 12 to 14 weeks of peak
"We are making scenarios for a 10% contagion rate [one million Portuguese] and we assume that there will be a more intense epidemic spread for at least 12 to 14 weeks in Portuguese territory," said Graça Freitas, in an interview with the weekly Expresso published this Saturday.
The Portuguese director general of health explained that the studies carried out estimate that 80% of the total number of people infected with the new coronavirus "will have a mild to moderate illness", 20% will have "a more serious illness" and only 5% will see a "critical evolution". In this scenario, the mortality rate "will be around 2.3% and 2.4%". If you do the accounts right: 80 + 20 + 5 = 105%. The figures given are therefore not precise.
He added that "in the most plausible scenario", there could be "around 21,000 cases in the most critical week", of which 19,000 may have mild symptoms, "like flu", and 1,700 cases which " will need to be hospitalized, but not all in intensive care. "
Graça Freitas said the Portuguese health authorities had made these forecasts based on data from the influenza A pandemic in 2009.
"We are working with disease attack rate scenarios, as we did with the flu pandemic in 2009. At the time, we thought there could be a total attack rate of 10 %: one million patients over 12 years of age, but not all serious, but in the end the rate was 7%, or around 700,000 people infected in Portugal during the 2009/10 influenza season ", he said explained, adding "that an epidemic depends on the rate of contagion, its duration and its severity".
However, in the case of Covid-19, much data is not sufficiently known to "make the scenarios realistic".
Graça Freitas stressed that the response plan to the spread of the new coronavirus in Portugal provides for the provision of two thousand beds in hospitals and 300 rooms under negative pressure.
If the disease progresses, there will be "isolation by rooms and by room", for example, for "all people who fell ill the same day," he said.
Evolution of coronavirus cases outside China
Is human behavior more dangerous than coronavirus?
The Director General of Health also said that "fake news and social media" are "a big problem" associated with the epidemic of the new coronavirus.
"The biggest fear I have is that of human behavior, of viral information [on the Internet] that can be counterproductive," said Graça Freitas, adding that Covid-19 differs from other epidemics in being "an epidemic" online "and a virus" of which not everything is known.
The head of the DGS also considers that, according to the distribution of Covid-19 in Portugal, a compulsory quarantine may be decreed.
Of the 59 suspected cases of Covid-19 registered in Portugal since the start of the epidemic, 57 have had a negative result in Portugal. Two cases are being analyzed, according to a statement from the Directorate General of Health (DGS), which on Friday described the risk to public health in Portugal as "moderate to high".
As of Friday, no confirmed positive cases of Covid-19 have been reported in Portugal. However, two Portuguese citizens, who are part of the crew of the cruise ship "Diamond Princess", are hospitalized in Japan for causes "related to coronavirus", according to the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
One of the patients refused to be identified. The other is Adriano Maranhão, who, after three days of isolation in the cabin of a ship, has been transferred to a hospital in Japan.
