LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal said on Saturday there were only seven vacancies left in intensive care units (ICUs) set up for COVID-19 cases on the continent, as an increase in infections led authorities to send some critically ill patients to the hospital. the Portuguese islands.
Data from the Ministry of Health showed that out of 850 ICU beds allocated to COVID-19 cases on its continent, a record 843 beds were now occupied. The nation of 10 million people still has 420 intensive care beds for those with other conditions.
The ministry said the number of daily infections was 12,435, down from a record on Thursday, while there were 293 deaths.
Portugal, which has so far reported a total of 12,179 COVID-19 deaths and 711,018 cases, has the world’s highest seven-day average of cases and deaths per capita, according to data tracker www.ourworldindata.org.
The justice ministry said on Friday that its forensic institute, whose role includes handling autopsies for police and others, had requested a refrigerated truck to keep the bodies because funeral homes could not pick them up quickly enough.
An association representing funeral homes said that public hospitals are also left without refrigerated space for the preservation of corpses. Some hospitals have installed cold containers to ease the pressure on their morgues.
With the continental beds depleted, three patients in need of critical 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 ease restrictions over the Christmas period, blaming the speed with which the infections spread to a new variant first detected in the UK.
The Portuguese Institute of Health, Ricardo Jorge, told the Lusa news agency that the variant will probably account for 65% of new COVID-19 cases within three weeks. Portugal extended the blockade until mid-February and imposed strict travel restrictions.
Reporting by Sergio Goncalves and Catarina Demony; Edited by Edmund Blair