Weekends cancelled in Portugal
New measures aimed at combating the spread of coronavirus have been in force in Portugal since Monday. While people must stay at home from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. all week, on weekends the curfew is in force as of 1 p.m. With the partial lockdown the government hopes to stem the surge in infection rates while keeping the economy and daily life going. Portuguese media react with indignation and sarcasm.
We need time to live
Público is appalled by the weekend lockdown measures:
“We know that sacrifices must be made and there are different possibilities. But we cannot tolerate the cancelling of our weekends, the time we spend with our families, being able to go shopping in peace (not only in the supermarket), in short, to live. The time of the week that people value most and that we all desperately need to be able to accept the measures that Covid-19 has made necessary. ... It is hard not to conclude that the government has chosen the worst solution. It will not bring the infection rates under control. But it will destroy the economy (the hospitality industry is collapsing) and the mental health of the Portuguese.”
Give me the hard liquor instead
Commenting in Visão, comedian Ricardo Araújo Pereira makes fun of the government's attempt to find a middle course:
“They say the country is facing a difficult choice: either you die of the disease because there are no restrictions, or you die of the restrictions because the economy is paralysed. Faced with these options, I personally am seriously considering opting for hard liquor. ... Instead of either closing everything, as was done in March, or keeping everything open, the government has opted for a hybrid solution that neither suffocates us completely nor allows us to breathe properly. It seems obvious to me that this is a case of political asphyxiaphilia. ... The idea is to apply the practice known as auto-erotic asphyxiation to the country. To be honest, I don't know what to think of the whole affair.”