Portugal is the country in the European Union (EU) with the most new daily cases of infection with SARS-CoV-2 per million population in the past seven days and second in the world with the highest number of daily deaths associated with the disease, according to data from the site statistical Our world in data for Tuesday (latest available indicators for Portugal). Despite this, it is important to mention that with regard to the case fatality rate (relationship between the total number of deaths and the total number of infections), the country has values below the European Union average.
The death rate from covid-19 in Portugal stands at 0.23%, according to data from the same site. This indicator reached a value of 4.13% in January 2021. According to data provided to the PUBLIC by mathematician Óscar Felgueiras, the most worrying scenario concerns even people over the age of 80, with a lethality of 3.38 %, a high value compared to recent months, but still lower than January 2021, when it stood at 34.3%.
Hungary is the country in the European Union with the highest fatality rate, with a rate of 3.53%, but the incidence is around 20 times lower than in Portugal, with the country registering 100 new cases per year. million inhabitants and a mortality of 1.14 deaths. at seven days. Meanwhile, Portugal records an average of 2.29 deaths with an incidence of 2019 cases. This means that in Hungary for every 100 people infected, one person dies and in Portugal there are two deaths for every two thousand people infected.
Also in the European Union, together with Portugal, and therefore with lower mortality rates, are the following countries: the Netherlands (0.15%), Germany (0.19%), France ( 0.21%), Portugal (0.23%) and Belgium (0.24%). ). The European average death rate is 0.27% and the global average is 0.32%.
At the top of the countries with the highest lethality are, in addition to Hungary, Bulgaria (2.40%), Estonia (2.07%), Poland (1.81%) and the United Kingdom ( 1.17%).
Regarding the number of new daily deaths attributed to covid-19 per million inhabitants over a seven-day average, Portugal is at the forefront of the European Union, with an average of 2.29 deaths per million population over the past seven days. Next come Greece (with 2.19 daily deaths at seven days and 423 cases per million), the United Kingdom (outside the EU) with 2.07 and 129 cases and Italy with 1.83 deaths including 549 cases per million of inhabitants at 7 days. Portugal currently has an average of 7 days of 2019 cases per million inhabitants.
At the global level, and considering only countries or territories with more than 500,000 inhabitants, New Zealand is the country with the highest average for this indicator (3.09), followed by Portugal, Greece ( 2.19), the United Kingdom (2.07) and Italy (1.82).
The European Union average for new deaths is 1.27 new deaths per day with covid-19 and the global average is 0.2.
In terms of incidence at European level, with a daily average of 2019 new cases per million inhabitants, Portugal leads, followed by Luxembourg (680), Ireland (636), Germany (606 ) and Italy (549). In the world, Portugal is the third country with the most new cases per million inhabitants, behind Taiwan (2681) and Australia (2037).
The European Union daily average for this indicator is 397 new cases, while the global average is 71.
Despite the scenario in which Portugal leads in terms of infections and deaths, these indicators have already shown much higher values in the past – for example, in February 2021 Portugal recorded a peak in deaths due to covid-19, with an average of 28.61 new daily deaths per million inhabitants.
The incidence recorded the highest value in Portugal on January 28 this year, with 5,468 new daily cases per million inhabitants in the previous seven days.
Still in terms of hospitalizations for covid-19, the The country’s hospitals remain below red lines defined, with 1494 patients hospitalized in mainland Portugal (data compared to the end of the day on Tuesday). Of these, 85 are in intensive care units, representing 36% of capacity, taking into account the red line of 235, as mathematician Carlos Antunes told PÚBLICO on Wednesday.