In an intervention carried out at the Infarmed meeting in Lisbon, which brings together experts, members of the Government, the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister for the analysis of the evolution of the pandemic, the expert noted that the prevalence of this “British variant” will already be above 70 percent in national territory.

“In England it is already close to 100 percent and the same will happen in other countries. In Denmark it has already passed 90 percent, in Ireland it was 90 percent three weeks ago too. Then we have Switzerland, Portugal, Austria and Germany with accelerated growth and all of them above 50-60 percent, so it is not surprising if all these countries are in a few weeks over 90 percent of cases of covid-19 provoked for the UK variant”, he explained.

João Paulo Gomes' analysis also extended to the variant associated with South Africa, revealing that 24 cases have already been identified in Portugal, a “modest number when compared to the numbers of countries such as Belgium, the United Kingdom, France or Austria”, but in which the researcher reinforced the “importance of border control at this time”, in view of its dissemination in the African continent and with community transmission in European countries.

"The epidemiological situation in Portugal depends strongly on the epidemiological situation that is occurring in other countries", pointed out the INSA researcher, reinforcing that this variant is related to "vaccine failures" due to the characteristics of its mutation.

Finally, João Paulo Gomes indicated the registration of 16 cases up to the time of the Manaus (Brazil) variant in Portugal, a register that is “on average for other countries”.