Portugal may announce the complete relief of the measures taken to contain and control the covid-19 pandemic already at the beginning of the second quarter of this year. The information was advanced by the Directorate General of Health (DGS) of Portugal, cited by cnnportugal.

The DGS expects the announcement of the lifting of all anti-covid-19 restrictions to be made on April 3. This is the date when Portugal may reach the threshold of 20 deaths per million inhabitants caused by the disease.

"It is a projection, which can always change," said the Director-General of Health, Graça Freitas, quoted by the portal.

The threshold of 20 deaths per million inhabitants, the criterion set by the European Center for Disease Control and Prevention (ECDC, in the original acronym) was the one referred to a week ago by the Government for the lifting of all restrictions, including the use of the mask indoors.

Still, Graça Freitas admits that this survey of measures is always subject to the evolution of numbers.

On the sidelines of the Update Days on Infectious Diseases at Curry Cabral Hospital, the Director-General of Health expressed a wish: that masks can be abandoned in schools still this school year, guaranteeing that this measure will advance at the same time in all places, such as public transportation, for example.