Costa guarantees quarantine with equal rights for public and private workers

The Government is going to publish an ordinance from the Ministry of Labor this Monday to ensure that workers, from the public and private sectors, who come to be quarantined due to the new coronavirus have “equal treatment”, said the prime minister today.

“The treatment will be the same for everyone,” said António Costa in remarks to journalists, after a visit to the Saúde24 contact center in Lisbon, on the day the first cases of infection in Portugal were confirmed with the new coronavirus (Covid -19).

The head of the Government affirmed that, this afternoon, the Minister of Economy, Siza Vieira, is meeting with business associations and that the Minister of Labor “has a ready order” and that “awaits the end of this meeting” to publish it.

“What is guaranteed to all professionals, whether in the public or private sector, is that in case it is necessary” for a person “to stay at home”, a mechanism corresponding to the casualties will be activated, that everyone can have their rights guaranteed “, he said.

The Covid-19 outbreak, detected in December in China, and which can cause respiratory infections such as pneumonia, caused more than 3,000 deaths and infected almost 90,000 people in 67 countries, including two in Portugal.

Of the infected people, about 45,000 recovered.

In addition to 2,912 deaths in China, there are fatalities in Iran, Italy, South Korea, Japan, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, Thailand, the United States and the Philippines.

A Portuguese crew member of a cruise ship is hospitalized in Japan with confirmation of infection.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Covid-19 outbreak as an international public health emergency and increased the risk to “very high”.

In Portugal, the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) confirmed the first two cases of infection in Portugal, a 66-year-old man and a 33-year-old man admitted to hospitals in Porto.

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