PORTO.
Cocktail shakers The ringtone set the mood as bartenders shook spectacular drinks in Porto’s second city, Porto, until the wee hours of Saturday.
“It’s a day of happiness when we get to work again,” the bartender Pedro Guedes characterized The Royal Cocktailbar Club behind a shimmering counter.
Portuguese liquor bars and discos were allowed to open after three weeks of mandatory closure. Nightlife was liberalized by a government decision and with the help of health authorities, despite the fact that more covid-19 infections have been registered on a daily basis than ever before.
The forced teleworking also ended but continues as a recommendation. The corona quarantine was shortened to seven days. Schoolchildren were already admitted to contact teaching last Monday, although distance learning was weighed in until the previous weekend.
Erasmus students at Núria Estale (right) in Barcelona and Eugenie Sicard from Nantes, France, rejoiced when they got to spend a disco in Porto. In Catalonia, regulations were stricter than in Portugal, and in France an even tougher corona line was drawn for amusement, they said.
The good-natured crowd slowly began to appear on Porto’s most famous bar street immediately after the allowed opening time at 10 p.m.
Delight can run until four in the morning on weekends, the owner of The Royal Cocktailbar Club Miguel Camões said. He looked around relieved but also vigilantly. The bars and discos closed after the pandemic broke out in 2020 and only reopened this fall for a couple of months, he says. Then under Christmas I had to put a note on the hatch again.
Miguel Camões, president of the Portuguese Association of Liquor Bars and Disco Entrepreneurs, is relieved that nightlife in Portugal has revived. In his opinion, however, the street scene is more than just a shadow of the former.
“We live in the hope that everything will get better towards spring. We are excited about how admission rules reduce the number of visitors. Weekends have been like a shadow of the past. Some of the entrepreneurs will not be able to continue their operations, ”said Camões, head of the Association of Porto Bars and Nightclubs.
Hobbyists now have to show the corona passport for the full vaccine set and the vaccine confirmation spike. If booster vaccination is not yet available, an official negative test result is required alongside the corona passport.
A supervised “home test” at the doorstep of the point of sale is also accepted.
Siblings Marta and Rita Barbosa as well as their friends Pedro Albuquerque celebrated the evening by eating at the restaurant first. They arrived at nightlife through a free corona test point.
Porto and Lisbon have offered free official tests to anyone who wants to.
“It’s wonderful for us to get to meet friends over a glass and get our thoughts off work. We strictly take care of the safety instructions, ”said the trio immersed in the armchairs of the drink bar.
In their view, there is no knocking of the beak in the coron passport and mask coercion. Portugal is in a state of social crisis, Calamidade State, which runs until March 20.
Among other things, the use of masks is required in public transport, shopping malls, theaters and restaurants, for example, under penalty of a fine.
“The rules for the corona epidemic are fair to those seeking bars. We have a lot of friends at work in hospitals, so we know what a pandemic the burden is on the health care system. For our part, we don’t want to burden it, ”Pedro Albuquerque said.
Siblings Marta and Rita Barbosa and Pedro Albuquerque were entertained after first taking the required quick test to enter the liquor bar. “We strictly adhere to safety instructions. They are very relevant to the situation, ”they said.
Cases of coronavirus disease have rallied in Portugal as in recent days. According to DGS, the Portuguese Institute for Health and Welfare, the highly susceptible omicron transformation already caused more than 90% of cases in the first half of the week.
Confirmed infections have exceeded 40,000 laundry days a day, more than ever before. According to Friday’s data, the incidence was 3,813, compared to 1,815 in Finland.
The hospitals treated 1,699 coronary patients, of whom 162 were in intensive care.
According to the department, this also predicts an increase in coronary mortality. 34 people had died of the disease on Thursday.
Portugal representing the medical association Alexandre Valentim Lourenço told HS that he was confident that the carrying capacity of hospitals would not fail despite the pressure. A country of ten million people experienced moments of terror soon a year ago, when the incidence and mortality of coronary heart disease became the highest in the world. The load on hospitals in the Helsinki metropolitan area was partly disappointing.
Regulatory corona documents were inspected at the disco doorway the night before Saturday in Porto, northern Portugal.
“We were completely unprepared at the time. At that time, about a thousand coronary patients were treated with the power of hospitals alone, ”Lourenço, who works at the country’s largest central university, Santa Maria University in Lisbon, said in a telephone interview on Friday. He heads the Southern Division of the Medical Association, which includes the metropolitan area and the Algarve, among others.
Lourenço points out that now more than 90 percent of the population has received two sets of vaccines and a third round is underway. Vaccination coverage and the omicron variant, which is characterized as a milder type of virus, alleviate the situation.
During the Christmas holidays, however, coron-positive crowds flocked to the hospital’s emergency departments, when the 24-hour coronal lines were blocked by contacts.
Several suffered from mild symptoms and were encouraged by outpatient managers citizens to stay at home.
“Now really, many corona positives are either asymptomatic or survive with mild symptoms. Immunization also occurs in this way. Still, the pandemic is not over, groups at risk need to be protected and, under normal circumstances, hospitals are short of staff, ”Lourenço emphasized.
Medical Lourenço believes that the mental health of young people is goodthat you can spend time in bars and discos again. “Socializing in them is done according to strict rules. There is no need to hold illegal parties for a thousand people where the virus is spreading, ”he reflected.
Against the background of the recent easing of interest rate restrictions, he sees at least support for the national economy but also the political situation. Prime Minister of the Socialist Government in charge of the Portuguese Social Democrats António Costa has not retreated in the face of rising infection rates, many believe, because the early parliamentary elections are coming at the end of January.
“It is not the coronary disease that has forced us to close the doors, but the government always according to how we want to calm the general mood. By opening up the nightlife, you can get more votes, ”said the bar entrepreneur Paula Albuquerque tap.
He watches as he walks by his drink terrace, who are attracted by rock and sparkling laser lights along the bar street. During the rest of the Portuguese language, Spanish, English and German flutter.
Marike Qwell of Germany and Ricardo Canto of Spain, who flew to Portugal on holiday, heard from the taxi driver that the bars and discos had just opened. “We’re going to dance and enjoy life,” Qwell said at The Stones disco on Friday.
Barcelonaer Nuria Estalella and French Eugenie Sicard rejoice at getting to the dance floor. In Catalonia and France, it would not succeed right now due to strict restrictions, Erasmus students say.
Restaurant chef Paula Guedes has, in turn, prepared for the weekend ‘s work by once again taking a free test near the train station. A health professional in a full protective suit Maria de Jesus neatly took a sample of the nasopharynx.
“I test every four to five days because there are a huge number of infections. If customers want to come thank you for the food, it is miserable to fear if I will get coronary heart disease from them. So far, I have avoided it, ”Guedes praised.
Restaurant chef Paula Guedes waited for admission to a free corona test on Friday. Guedes goes through tests frequently as infections have become more common and he is excited about the spread of the disease among colleagues and clients.
Maria de Jesus, a nurse at Poc Medical Center that focuses on coronary infection testing and home help, took a quick test from Paula Guedes on Friday in downtown Porto. Marisa Bailas followed. The cities of Lisbon and Porto, among others, have published thousands of free tests.
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