wellinever

Any advice anyone can give welcomed.
On coming Tuesday the local Council are sending 3 people to do a `Vistoria` on my house, this required for a Habitation License.
I actually live in the house when I am in Portugal,as it was finished end of last year.
However due to workload and then Covid, this is the first time I have managed to get them to do actually perform their duties.
They will be going into every room of the house and I am a bit concerend as you can imagine I have no idea who these people are or where they may have been before visitng me. So apart from insisting that they use my own Sanitizer gel, and new gloves, what else if anything would anyone advise.
I have no idea how long they will be in the house, but I suspect with all of the necessary checks it will be 15mins or so.

RichardHenshall

Masks, covering mouth and nose, for all four of you, all the time.

Keep as many doors and windows open as possible to allow for frequent air changes.

Keep your distance but remember that they should be just as nervous as you are. You've just flown in.

liveaboard

Numbers in Portugal are through the roof over the last few weeks; so one hand, be careful.
But on the other hand, get your work done while you can.

wellinever

Yes hear all of those, and yes you are right, if I dont get this done now, who knows when total lockdown might happen again.
Last time, in Feb, I was one day away from getting a date and then the Camara closed down!!!
Be typical if we get rain on Tuesday morning after weeks of unbroken sun.

Rambling archer

Sorry to be the bringer of gloom and doom, but have you seen the weather forecast? Weather WARNING for wind Monday and Tuesday, and heavy rain Monday pm through Tuesday. But if they are checking the inside of the house, no worries....

Rambling archer

MJ2112

Better not to use ACs at home and office

wellinever

Yes been watching the jet stream on netweather.tv coming this way , as well as ventusky.com which shows it all pretty well, in fact using the timeline which gets pretty accurate as you get closer to the date, looks like 10am looks very wet in the Algarve...oh well cant be helped. Maybe as you say they will be more scared of me and bugger off quickly (wishful thinking)

liveaboard

Currently I'm very stressed about 3 things.
One of the three is the intense drought here in southern Portugal.
So while the timing of the rain is rarely what we want, the rain we very much do want.

riv

ARE ? numbers ' through the roof' ' at the moment in Portugal ?

I am aware they have increased, of course, but as this was from a v low ( compared to UK ) base, I wonder how the two countries compare at the moment.

Or more specifically, how does A the Algarve, and B Lisbon compare in terms of risk ?

Is it on the cards that restaurants and museums will be closed any day soon ? Jus' wondrin'...........

liveaboard

Comparing numbers, Portugal has slightly less new cases per day than the UK.
Cases per day is the fastest changing and most dramatic number, but dependent on how many tests were administered, and how they're targeted [general population, or hard hit regions, or exposed people...]
The hospitalization figures are a better way to compare the situation; the point at which people are admitted is probably fairly consistent.
Per head of population, Portugal has slightly more people currently hospitalized for corona virus than the UK. The number is rising fast in both countries.

In a normal winter, Portuguese hospitals are already overloaded. Great difficulty is expected in the coming months.

Most cases are in the areas of Porto and Lisbon; but that's where most people live. I've been unable to separate the population numbers from case numbers to get a real statistic, but it would appear that the infection rates in the cities is far higher.
Now that the tourist season is over, hopefully there will be less transmission down here in the south.

I've observed more people flouting safety measures in Portimao.

Death rates are lower than they were at the beginning of the epidemic, possibly the virility has weakened a little [normal with epidemics, as the longer people live the more they can share it around, this favors less deadly strains].
The medical community has become much better at treating patients and preventing death, giving the body time to build up antibodies and recover.

A statistic that no one seems to be keeping is how many people are left partially disabled.
Even of those who recover more or less fully, many have suffered weeks or months of very unpleasant illness.

So far, the PT government hasn't announced any new measures to slow the infection rate.
I'll be surprised if they don't do so soon.

riv

I would have thought ( ok, I'm not medically trained, just going from first principles of logic ) that a very simple thing the authorities ( in both countries ) could do to lessen the spread, would be to take care of hospitalized Covid sufferers in specialized hospital locations.

What was the sense in the UK of creating all those Nightingale Hospitals and then closing them down and now admitting the second wave patients to the same old general purpose hospitals in which the virus can spread at will ?

More generally, I also wonder whether the numbers touted around actually mean very much .

And I also wonder ( and worry ) about Long Covid long term effects : can anyone be confident that, even after apparent recovery, the virus will not come back to adversely affect those who contracted it even months or years before ? This can certainly happen with Malaria. I know, it's a parasite, not a virus, but still...........This is what gives me pause about the ( otherwise plausible ) idea that as the young have only mild symptoms they should be all allowed , even encouraged, to get it and get it over with.

liveaboard

There seem to be 2 realities with no room between them;
It's a deadly virus that will kill untold numbers unless we all hunker down.
OR
It's a heap of hype, just a severe flu that kills a few more people than other flus.
And for some mysterious reason known only to themselves, certain powers want to use it to control the population and destroy the economy.

I would point out that persons who have spent a decade or more studying this sort of thing [epidemiologists] are overwhelmingly of the first opinion, while those that postulate the second are mostly politicians and journalists who finally wrote something they can sell.

Most of the people here who refuse to believe it's a serious problem are in the tourism industry.
Then again, most people here are in the tourism industry.

We are not traveling, shopping carefully with gloves and industrial mask [not those cheapo surgical rectangles], only socialize briefly, outdoors at a 3 meter distance, preferably with a stiff cross wind.
People who think bad things don't happen to them have never had bad things happen to them; but we all know bad things will happen to someone.

riv

Is there anyone with actual personal experience of having ( confirmed, not just suspected ) the Virus ? And if so what symptoms did they experience ?

If you are hospitalized in Portugal ( not a private facility ) do you get put in a great ward with a dozen other patients ?

I think in France they are proud they abolished the whole mad idea of 'WARDS' decades ago.

bons

I'm monitoring this carefully, we have to travel to Portugal early in December to appy for residency, I'm hoping that a, our flights will not be cancelled and b, that all office in Portugal are not closed because of the virus. (I haven't booked any flights yet, I'm waiting until nearer the time)