Portuguese voters under COVID quarantine allowed to vote in polling stations
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Loading... - Simon Sterling
- 21 Jan 2022
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Portuguese voters under COVID-19 quarantine will be able to visit their polling stations on January 30 but have been urged to do so late in the day.
The ballot later this month will elect 230 lawmakers to the Republican Assembly, Portugal's parliament.
The Interior Ministry announced on Wednesday that voters under quarantine "will be able to leave their place of confinement on this day, strictly, to exercise their right to vote."
Authorities are calling on COVID-19 positive voters to attend their polling station during its last opening hour so as to minimise contact with other voters.
During the municipal elections in September and the presidential elections last January, which were held under strict general lockdown and when the country was hit hard by the pandemic, this possibility was not available.
"The problem we had in the previous elections has been magnified because we now have many more people infected," Interior Minister FranciscaVan Dunem said.
Omicron sweeps through
Portugal recorded more than 52,500 new infections on Wednesday -- a new pandemic-high blamed on the spread of the Omicron variant.
Some 600,000 people are under quarantine, two-thirds of whom are potential voters out of a total of 9.3 million registered voters in Portugal.
Portugal currently ranks 5th in the European Union in the number of new cases detected in the last two weeks but it is only 17th in terms of the number of deaths relative to its population thanks to its record vaccination coverage -- 82.9% of its 10.3 million population is fully vaccinated. Read More…
