Lisbon (Lusa).
Hundreds of people today challenged the measures imposed by the Government to mitigate the effects of the covid-19 pandemic, with cries for “freedom” and “truth”, in a demonstration held in Rossio square, in Lisbon.
The national mobilization, which brought together several groups, aimed to make a stand against several restrictive measures that they consider unconstitutional, including the use of mandatory masks on the street.
“It is not a question of being against the use of masks, it is being against measures that, in most cases, are completely unreasonable, because they are not effective,” said Gonçalo Martins, one of those responsible for organizing the demonstration.
Without masks and without social distance, the protesters wielded several posters, which said, among others, “Down with the dictatorship”, “Masks generate distrust”, “Promote health instead of fear” or “Fear is not the vaccine”, while speeches were made on a stage set up for this purpose.
“The masks that are used are not effective in containing the virus. The virus is retained somewhere in the mask, but the mask has a side opening. The glasses get fogged up, it means that the water vapor is coming out of me over the mask. When water vapor comes, the virus will also come, ”said the 44-year-old environmental engineer and hygiene and safety technician at work.
Claiming that the fight against the pandemic is being treated “in a technically inconsistent way and, perhaps, with little identification of the realities that each one is protecting with the use of the mask”, Gonçalo Martins also lamented the lack of language reading in interpersonal communication, for not being able to see the mouths.
Asked about the possibility of an outbreak of covid-19 among the members of the demonstration, the protester denied the risk of transmission.
“Taking into account the data that have been analyzed and are available, only a small percentage may eventually need hospital treatment and even a smaller one for treatment in intensive care units. The likelihood that someone here will contract the disease is very low, ”he said.
In the manifest manifested, the group “Verdade Inconveniente” asks, in addition to the “optional use of masks”, the revision of the “guidelines for the school year” and the “excess of protectionism in homes and reception centers”, as well as “regularization services in the National Health System ”and the“ revocation of the state of calamity ”, among other measures.
On Friday, in a global final vote, parliament approved a PSD bill imposing the mandatory use of masks in public spaces and imposing fines of between 100 and 500 euros for non-performers.
The PSD’s diploma, which was inspired by a Government law proposal, however “disaggregated”, was voted in general, specialty and global final and, in the last vote, had votes against IL, abstentions from BE, PCP, Greens and by Joacine Katar Moreira, with a favorable vote from the remaining seats. Chega’s single deputy was absent from the vote.
The covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 1.1 million deaths and more than 42.2 million cases of infection worldwide, according to a report by the French agency AFP.
In Portugal, 2,297 people died from 116,109 confirmed cases of infection, according to the most recent bulletin from the Directorate-General for Health.
The disease is transmitted by a new coronavirus detected in late December 2019 in Wuhan, a city in central China.
After Europe succeeded China as the center of the pandemic in February, the American continent is now the one with the most confirmed cases and the most deaths.
