The current pandemic crisis COVID-19 has attracted unparalleled attention at a wide range of levels, media, academic communities, citizens in general and naturally public policy authorities. The information being disseminated by the Directorate-General of Health, in conditions never before experienced, has been fundamental in this context in Portugal. Statistics Portugal welcomes this public service.
Integrating this information with the data produced by Statistics Portugal on demographic dynamics, Statistics Portugal seeks to present in this press release an analytical perspective on the phenomenon by focusing on its spatial analysis.
Despite the progressive spread of the pandemic throughout the country, its impact has been particularly intense in relative terms (taking into account indicators of size and population density per km2) in municipalities in the Metropolitan Area of Porto. Additionally, the following results stand out:
• The number of deaths in March 2020 was higher than the figure observed for the same period in 2019, but lower than in 2018. In this context, 27 municipalities that registered more than 150 deaths per 100 deaths in comparison to the same reference period (average number of deaths in March 2018 and 2019) should be highlighted.
• On April 7, 2020, in Portugal, for every 10,000 inhabitants there were 12.8 confirmed cases of COVID-19. The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 disease per 10 thousand inhabitants was above the national value in 34 municipalities and of this group, 23 belonged to the Norte region.
• The analysis of the relationship between the number of confirmed cases per 10 thousand inhabitants and the proportion of the resident population aged 65 and over highlights a set of 13 municipalities with values above the national average in both indicators.