LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal said on Saturday it had only seven vacant beds in intensive care units (ICUs) installed for cases of COVID-19 on its continent, as an outbreak of infections prompted authorities to send some critically ill patients to Portuguese islands.
Data from the Ministry of Health showed that, of the 850 ICU beds allocated to COVID-19 cases on its continent, a record 843 beds were already occupied. The nation of 10 million people has 420 additional ICU beds for people with other illnesses.
The ministry said the number of daily infections was 12,435, falling from Thursday’s record, while there were 293 deaths.
Portugal, which has so far reported a total of 12,179 deaths and 711,018 COVID-19 cases, has the highest average of seven days of cases and deaths per capita in the world, according to the data tracker www.ourworldindata.org.
The Ministry of Justice said on Friday that its institute of forensic medicine, whose job includes handling autopsies for the police and others, requested a refrigerator truck to store the bodies, as the funeral homes were unable to take them with them. fast enough.
An association representing funeral homes said public hospitals are also running out of refrigerated space to preserve bodies. Some hospitals have installed cold containers to relieve pressure in their morgues.
With the number of beds on the continent decreasing, three patients in need of intensive care were flown from Lisbon to the Portuguese island of Madeira on Friday, where the health system is under less pressure.
The government attributed the rise in infections to a decision to relax restrictions during the Christmas period, blaming the speed with which infections spread for a new variant first detected in Britain.
The Portuguese health institute, Ricardo Jorge, told the Lusa news agency that the variant should be responsible for 65% of new cases of COVID-19 in three weeks. Portugal extended the blockade until mid-February and imposed strict travel restrictions.
Reporting by Sergio Gonçalves and Catarina Demony; Editing by Edmund Blair