I’d like to say that the holidays passed pleasantly, but that just was not the case. The government of Portugal cratered under the pressure to “save Christmas” in this very Catholic country. They relaxed the restrictions just for the week of Christmas to allow families to see each other and restaurants to be open. Even though restrictions tightened back up starting at 11:00pm on New Year’s Eve, it was too little and too late. The damage was done. Add to that the new, more contagious, strains of the virus brought here from Brazil and the UK. We went from having fairly stable covid numbers up through Christmas to the horrific current situation.  As of now, Portugal has the highest number of new cases per capita in the world with deaths per capita also near the top.  Anyone that still refuses to believe that strict restrictions are necessary to control this monster, is delusional.

We are now under a strict lock-down with all schools and non-essential businesses closed.  Everyone is required to stay home other than to get groceries, see a doctor, pick-up take-away food, or the like. You can go out for a walk for health, but you had better stay close to home and are now required to carry proof of your address. Unfortunately, we see a growing percentage of people  looking for ways to skirt the rules. While the level of disobedience is nowhere near what we see happening in the U.S., it is relatively bad for the normally cooperative good people of Portugal. The taste of freedom over Christmas only made things harder, in my opinion.

We had such high hopes for the New Year and the promise of the vaccine. Now, almost a month in, the rate of vaccination has been painfully slow. They estimate that barely more than 1% of the population has been vaccinated. That rate must accelerate dramatically if we are ever going to get to the magic 80% they say we need.