António Costa stressed that the new variants of Covid-19 are a risk that Portugal should not neglect.

The head of the executive was speaking at the end of the Council of Ministers meeting to decide the new measures for the state of emergency, whose authorisation for renewal until 1 March was approved today by parliament.

According to the Prime Minister, the variant detected in the UK has "a prevalence at the moment of 43 percent in the number of new cases in the country".

"No one knows, no one can guarantee, nor can anyone prevent new variants from emerging," António Costa warned, stressing that the Portuguese must be "aware that the situation is still extremely serious", which requires the prolongation of current containment measures.