Portugal’s government has asked the country’s president to declare a state of emergency because of a spike in cases in the country.
“[The state of emergency] is of an essentially preventive nature,” Portuguese Prime Minister, António Costa, said at a press conference on Monday, after meeting with President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa for nearly an hour.
Costa said the state of emergency would “eliminate judicial doubt” about some of the government’s decisions to restrict the right of movement and the right to gather, which are essential rights under the Portuguese constitution.
The move would also allow the government to order private hospitals and centers to assist with the care of Covid-19 patients.
“It is a very critical moment,” Costa said, adding that the declaration would be more limited in scope than the one made during the spring wave, but would probably also last longer.
“We must avoid gatherings at any cost,” he said.
Portugal’s president will meet the leaders of other political parties before making a decision.
Costa’s statement came after he announced strict new measures to contain the rising number of cases in Portugal on Saturday. Portugal has recorded more than 144,000 Covid-19 cases over the course of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Meanwhile cases are surging across Europe, leaving authorities scrambling to contain the second wave.
In Switzerland, officials have recorded more than 20,000 new infections in the past 72 hours.
There were 21,926 new Covid-19 cases reported on Monday, according to Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health. The country has recorded 176,177 cases in total.
Swiss health authorities also reported 93 deaths over the weekend, taking the country’s coronavirus death toll to 2,130.
In Germany, the number of coronavirus patients in ICUs has tripled in the last two weeks, according to health minister Jens Spahn.
And in the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to make a statement to MPs on Monday, warning that virus deaths in the winter could be twice as high as during the first wave of the outbreak, according to the PA media news agency.
PA reports that Johnson will say there is no alternative but to impose a new lockdown in England.
Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the reporting period for the latest coronavirus figures from Switzerland. This has now been corrected.
