So no surprise there, but the Portuguese parliament voted Thursday in favor of putting the country in another 15-day state of emergency — until Feb. 14.
Related: Portugal Closes Schools, Creches, Universities for 15 Days to Combat Spread of COVID
Most of us probably expected most of the measures. How could we not: somehow, despite the government steadily tightening the screws on individual and societal freedoms over the past three weeks, the numbers just kept going up, records getting set daily, both in the number of new cases and the number of deaths, and horrific updates about the dwindling resources of the health system, until Portugal made it all the way to the top of the list of European countries with the biggest problems. We’re going to get help not just from Germany now, but also from hard-hit Spain.
The Portuguese, meanwhile, will be discouraged from leaving to go abroad during this period.
