COVID 19 | Last phase of lockdown in Portugal

After consecutive renovations of the State of Emergency since November 9 th, Portugal will move to a State of Calamity legal framework and the Government anticipated the last phase of the lockdown easing plan for Saturday, 1st of May.
The new rules to face the Covid 19 pandemic will be applied in the majority of the municipalities – 270. Restaurants, culture and retail are the main sectors where the rules will be relaxed.

 For now, the Government reaffirms that companies should continue to apply remote work until the end of the year. While announcing the new rules decided by the Council of Ministers this Thursday, 29th April, the Prime Minister António Costa affirmed: "the situation cannot be considered solved. We must all avoid contacts that are not necessary, so that pandemic does not worsen again."

In the last 24 hours, the health authorities registered 470 new cases of Covid-19 and one related death. Below is a summary of the new key rules.

MEASURES TO BE IMPLEMENTED FROM THE 1 ST MAY:

● Opening of land borders with Spain, closed since the 31st January

● Restaurants, cafes and pastry shops may be open until 10:30 pm, including weekends, where the current rule was to close at 1:00 pm

● Cultural events allowed until 10:30 pm

● All shops and shopping centres can operate until 9pm during the week and 7pm on weekends and public holidays

● Gymnasiums can fully function

● Private celebrations such as weddings may again have up to 50% of the capacity of the space where they are held. Until the end of the third phase of deconfinement, the maximum capacity for these events was 25%