LISBON (Reuters) – Portugal’s state of emergency, the highest level of coronavirus alert, will end on Friday, the president announced, as infections drop sharply and the country prepares to further ease a strict lockdown imposed more than three months ago.
“Without a state of emergency, it is necessary to maintain or adopt all essential measures to prevent setbacks,” President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said in a televised address on Tuesday.
Portugal will transition to a state of “calamity”, which still allows the government to impose some measures to reduce the risk of contagion but the rules it can put in place are more limited and must be justified.
“If necessary, I will not hesitate to move forward with a new state of emergency,” Rebelo de Sousa added.
(Reporting by Catarina Demony and Sergio Goncalves; Editing by Grant McCool)
