Lisbon says record 843 of the 850 ICU beds allocated to COVID-19 patients on the continent have been occupied.
Portugal said there were only seven vacancies left in intensive care units (ICUs) set up for COVID-19 cases on the mainland, as an increase in infections led authorities to send critical patients to Portuguese islands.
Data from the Ministry of Health on Saturday showed that out of 850 ICU beds allocated to COVID-19 cases on the continent, there were now 843 beds. The nation of 10 million people has 420 extra ICU beds for those with other ailments.
The ministry said the number of daily infections was 12,435, which was less than Thursday’s record of 16,432, while there were 293 deaths.
Portugal, which so far has reported a total of 12,179 deaths from COVID-19 and 711,018 cases, has the highest seven-day average number of cases and deaths per capita in the world, according to the data tracking ourworldindata.org.
The country’s new number of cases has recently reached the highest in the world in relation to its population. Ambulances lined up outside Lisbon hospitals as health care came under pressure.
Refrigerator truck
The Justice Department said Friday its institute for forensic medicine, which includes the role of including autopsies for police and others, asked a refrigerator truck to preserve bodies as funeral homes could not take off fast enough.
An association representing funeral homes said public hospitals also did not have enough cooling space to store bodies. Some hospitals have installed cold containers to relieve the pressure on their mortuaries.
While the beds on the mainland are scarce, three patients in need of critical care were transported from Lisbon to the Portuguese island of Madeira on Friday, where the health system is under less pressure.
The government attributed the increase in infections to a decision to relax restrictions over the Christmas period, blaming the speed with which infections spread on a new variant first detected in the UK.
The Portuguese health institute, Ricardo Jorge, told the news agency Lusa that the variant would probably make up 65 percent of the new COVID-19 cases within three weeks.
Portugal extended an exclusion until mid-February and imposed strict travel restrictions.