• Coronavirus Portugal exceeds 10,000 deaths in pandemic with a new record in 24 hours

  • Coronavirus Portugal prepares to re-elect its president with hospitals in a "war situation"

New records of deaths and infections and

lines of ambulances at the entrance of hospitals

mark the day of reflection of the presidential elections in Portugal, a country that is going through a critical moment of the coronavirus pandemic and that will allow its citizens to leave their confinement to go to the polls.

The country is

the world leader in deaths and new infections per million inhabitants

, according to data from the University of Oxford

, and lives on the brink of health collapse, the latest evidence of which is the lines of ambulances waiting for a bed to leave the sick they transport , seen in the last hours in Lisbon.

It is the photograph of a country on the edge,

which this Saturday has exceeded the 10,000 death barrier

since the pandemic began and which, after adding the new records of 274 deaths and more than 15,000 infections in the last 24 hours, is about to to open a parenthesis in the "stay at home" rule.

We must vote this Sunday, candidates and authorities insist, to elect a president

at a crucial moment for Portugal.

"VOTING IS SAFE"

These elections are so relevant that going to vote will be an authorized reason for voters residing in the national territory to leave the confinement that began last day 15. There

are more than nine million people

, who after almost ten days hearing that they must stay as long as possible at home they see how now they are encouraged to go out.

"Voting is safe", say signs placed, among other places, in the Lisbon Metro, in which it is reported that it will be mandatory to wear a mask, keep your distance in line, disinfect your hands and, if possible, Bring your own pen.

In addition,

extraordinary measures have been taken for these elections

, such as allowing mobility between municipalities to vote on electoral Sunday - something forbidden on weekends - and expanding early voting.

Almost 250,000 people registered for this modality

through which votes were cast last Sunday.

It is a record figure, but it is still low if one takes into account that there are more than 9 million people who can vote in Portugal, to which another and a half million are added abroad.

The number of tables has also been expanded, the ballots of the infected and people in isolation in their own homes have been collected - although those who test positive in the previous 10 days are left without voting -

and the elderly are allowed in residences that they vote in the centers themselves

.

ABSTENTION, THE KEY

Even so, it is feared that the fear of the pandemic will end up being greater and abstention will skyrocket, which in the last presidential elections, in 2016, exceeded 50% and that on Sunday it may rise to a historic 70%, according to polls.

The most affected of the seven candidates by this eventual scenario would be the current president

and candidate for reelection for another five years, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, of the center-right, who has been the clear favorite for months with forecasts of more than 60% of votes .

With the rapid worsening of the pandemic this week, however,

his image has suffered and he has lost eight points

(he now has an estimate of 58%) in polls that announce that those most likely to stay at home are right-wing voters and center, precisely its electorate.

The consequence may be that there is surprise and a second round should be held if it obtains less than 50% of the votes, also giving wings to the far-right candidate, André Ventura.

Ventura, poll experts warn, could in this context improve its already bulky predictions (third place with 12.5% ​​of votes) if its voters, whose real size could be underestimated due to their reluctance to participate in the polls, are not daunted with the pandemic and go to vote.

"This is a decisive fight,"

the president and candidate

admitted this Friday

in his campaign closing speech, that on the possibility of a second round, which would take place in mid-February, he said that it is "important to save the Portuguese three more campaign weeks "in the middle of the pandemic crisis.

A scenario that also sees "possible" the candidate Ana Gomes, a former Socialist MEP who is estimated to get second place with 14.5% of the votes.

The three will focus attention this Sunday,

in which the rest of the applicants, with projections of less than 5% of votes

, have little chance.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN VARIANT ARRIVES IN PORTUGAL

The day of reflection leaves an extra bad news: the confirmation of the presence in Portugal of the South African variant of the Covid that, as is the case with the British one - which already has a prevalence of 20% in the country - is more contagious.

At the moment, a single case has been detected, "a foreigner residing in Lisbon,"

as one of the researchers from the Ricardo Jorge National Institute of Health revealed to local media, who is tracking the presence of new strains of coronavirus.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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