Madeira With 23 New Cases

Tobi Hughes·
Madeira News

Madeira recorded this Wednesday the record of new daily cases. There are 23 positives to report (13 imported cases are from the United Kingdom (4), Germany (4), Lisbon and Tagus Valley Region (3), Poland (1) and one from the Czech Republic), with the remaining 10 are local transmission associated with positive case contacts previously identified.

According to the epidemiological bulletin of IASaúde, six of the cases of local transmission identified today concern children aged up to two years, who attended two kindergartens, one in the municipality of Funchal and the other in Câmara de Lobos. These establishments already had active contingency plans for case identification or contact with positive cases.

Another confirmed case concerns a Health Service professional. Epidemiological investigation is ongoing, with the prophylactic isolation of four professionals in two services determined.

There are three more recovered cases to report. The Region now accounts for 475 ‘cured’ cases and 162 active cases, of which 74 are imported identified in the context of surveillance activities implemented at Madeira Airport and 88 are cases of local transmission. Regarding the residence of active cases, 57 are non-residents and 105 are residents in Madeira.

As for the isolation of active cases, 36 people are isolated in a dedicated hotel unit, 122 in their own accommodation and four people hospitalised in the Multipurpose Unit dedicated to covid-19.

In total, there are 117 new situations being studied by the health authorities, four from the screening operation implemented at Madeira airport and 113 related to contacts with positive cases or situations reported to the SRS24 line. Epidemiological investigations are ongoing.

From Diário Notícias

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Tobi Hughes

20 Responses

  2. I can’t comment on the UK cases . But please take a look at our experience on yesterday’s edinburgh flight. I don’t know how to start a new post so I described it on tobi’s post dated 17th concerning the 3 recovered cases.

  3. It would be very interesting to see out of all those positive tests done at the airport are in fact positive. Interesting how we never hear from anyone that is then confined to quarantine based on that test. Does a doctor then do an evaluation of that positive person or do they just get sent there on the basis of the test? And that’s it, your holiday has been ripped from you…..maybe people who get told they are positive and yet feel perfectly well (hence travelling) are in a position to challenge the authorities, now that a court has deemed the tests as unreliable…extract of which I include here:

    Portuguese Appeals Court Deems PCR tests unreliable (news source)

    A Portuguese professor and lockdown sceptic has sent me a long and informative email about a recent ruling by the Portuguese Court of Appeal which casts doubt on the reliability of the PCR test. It is a great tribute to the integrity of the Portuguese legal system that the Court seems to understand in considerable detail the shortcomings of the PCR test as a diagnostic tool, particularly when not used in combination with a clinical diagnosis. I think this is the best news I’ve had all week. What follows is not the whole email. The professor doesn’t want to be identified, so I’m only publishing an extract.
    With Spain and Greece, Portugal is one of the few countries in the so-called West where enough people are still alive to know what a dictatorship looks like. Our numbers are dwindling, as you have to be at least 60 to have experienced the 1974 revolution in any meaningful manner. I was a teenager at the time, and I remember very well what daily life was like under censorship, massively lying mass media, police brutality, arbitrary detention in the name of the “national interest”, etc. — all those things that I hoped never again have to experience but that the current Covid climate has brought very, very vividly to the fore. Yet, it may well be exactly because of such things having happened in living memory that our Government has been less heavy-handed about the pandemic than most others in Europe. And, now to the point, maybe that’s also why our high courts have issued rulings of potentially devastating consequences for the current Covid narrative. Portugal is a small country but is part of the EU and so what happens here still is of some international significance. That’s why I thought you’d be interested in learning about some recent developments.
    In a recent decision, dated November 11, 2020, a Portuguese appeal court ruled against the Azores Regional Health Authority concerning a lower court decision to declare unlawful the quarantining of four persons. Of these, one had tested positive for Covid using a PCR test; the other three were deemed to have undergone a high risk of exposure. Consequently, the Regional Health Authority decided that all four were infectious and a health hazard, which required that they go into isolation. The lower court had ruled against the Health Authority, and the appeal court upheld that ruling with arguments that explicitly endorse the scientific case for the lack of reliability of the PCR tests (e.g., as extensively explained in Lockdown Skeptics by Dr. Mike Yeadon, Dr. Clare Craig and others).
    The court’s ruling is a long text. I provide below a summary of the key passage.
    The court’s main points are as follows:
    A medical diagnosis is a medical act that only a physician is legally qualified to undertake and for which such physician will be solely and entirely responsible. No other person or institution, including government agencies or the courts, has such an authority. It is not up to the Azores Regional Health Authority to declare someone ill, or a health hazard. Only a physician can do that. No one can be declared ill or a health hazard by decree or law, nor as the automatic, administrative consequence of the outcome of a laboratory test, no matter which.
    From the above, the court concludes that “if carried out with no prior medical observation of the patient, with no participation of a physician certified by the Ordem dos Médicos who would have assessed symptoms and requested the tests/exams deemed necessary, any act of diagnosis, or any act of public health vigilance (such as determining whether a viral infection or a high risk of exposure exist, which the aforementioned concepts subsume) will violate [a number of laws and regulations] and may configure a crime of usurpação de funções [unlawful practice of a profession] in the case said acts are carried out or dictated by someone devoid of the capacity to do so, i.e., by someone who is not a certified physician [to practice medicine in Portugal a degree is not enough, you need to be accepted as qualified to practice medicine by undergoing examination with the Ordem dos Médicos, roughly our equivalent of the UK’s Royal College of Physicians].”
    In addition, the court rules that the Azores Health Authority violated article 6 of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, as it failed to provide evidence that the informed consent mandated by said Declaration had been given by the PCR-tested persons who had complained against the forced quarantine measures imposed on them.
    From the facts presented to the court, it concluded that no evidentiary proof or even indication existed that the four persons in question had been seen by a doctor, either before or after undertaking the test.
    The above would suffice to deem the forced quarantine of the four persons unlawful. The court thought it necessary, however, to add some very interesting considerations about the PCR tests:
    “Based on the currently available scientific evidence this test [the RT-PCR test] is in and of itself unable to determine beyond reasonable doubt that positivity in fact corresponds to infection by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, for several reasons, among which two are paramount (to which one would need to add the issue of the gold standard, which, due to that issue’s specificity, will not be considered here): the test’s reliability depends on the number of cycles used; the test’s reliability depends on the viral load present.”
    Citing Jaafar et al. (2020;), the court concludes that “if someone is tested by PCR as positive when a threshold of 35 cycles or higher is used (as is the rule in most laboratories in Europe and the US), the probability that said person is infected is <3%, and the probability that said result is a false positive is 97%.” The court further notes that the cycle threshold used for the PCR tests currently being made in Portugal is unknown [N.B. – I know from acquaintances that in at least some Portuguese labs the threshold is 35 cycles].
    Citing Surkova et al. (2020)), the court further states that any diagnostic test must be interpreted in the context of the actual probability of disease as assessed prior to the undertaking of the test itself, and expresses the opinion that “in the current epidemiological landscape of the United Kingdom, the likelihood is increasing that Covid 19 tests are returning false positives, with major implications for individuals, the health system and society.”
    The court’s summary of the case to rule against the Regional Health Authority’s appeal reads as follows:
    “Given how much scientific doubt exists — as voiced by experts, i.e., those who matter — about the reliability of the PCR tests, given the lack of information concerning the tests’ analytical parameters, and in the absence of a physician’s diagnosis supporting the existence of infection or risk, there is no way this court would ever be able to determine whether C was indeed a carrier of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, or whether A, B and D had been at a high risk of exposure to it.”
    I anticipate this ruling to have massive legal implications in my country. Note that it comes in the back of a previous ruling by the Constitutional Court, our highest court, declaring as an unlawful deprivation of liberty a decision by the Regional Government of the Azores to force into a 14-day quarantine every passenger landing in an airport of the territory.
    Stop Press: A reader has got in touch to say he’s looked at the NHS definitions for the terms used in the monthly data analysed by my doctor friend yesterday and uncovered the following gem:
    For all relevant data items: a confirmed COVID-19 patient is any patient admitted to the trust who has recently (ie in the last 14 days) tested positive for COVID-19 following a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test.Patients who have been diagnosed via X-ray and assessment rather than a positive test should be counted as suspected (and not confirmed) COVID-19 patients.So patients that have a test but no diagnosis are confirmed COVID patients. Anyone with a firm clinical diagnosis but no positive test are “suspected”.

  4. I am slightly puzzled. I gather it is banned to fly other than on busines/ in extremis anywhere from England until the lockdown is lifted in December. Not sure about the other three UK countries. So are people from England at least, ignoring the legal ban and chancing it ? If so , some are bringing more than their suitcases to Msdeira and doing it no fsvours. The Virus seems now settled and spreading in the host community ? Which is damaging to the island’s staple industry of tourism.

    1. I have written two posts on this. Unless their flight is necessary they should not be flying. Should The Airlines be aiding them ? Plus, their insurance should not be effective.

    2. There are hardly any flights coming out of the UK and Europe at the moment. One Easyjet flight from Gatwick due on Fri 20th. BA holding off until Dec 5th. If you look at the ANA website incoming flights are mostly ex-Lisbon.

  5. George, it seems obvious that, whether there is a ‘lockdown’ in place or not in one’s home country, it is an irresponsible act to travel to another less affected country for pleasure. Some people however make mockery of this notion and are happy to be self styled ‘selfish bastards’. What are the chances of common sense prevailing in people of this mind-set?

      1. Maurice, I think I know what you are saying and I will be arriving early December. I take Ruby’s point but my defense is without the visitors what is Madeira to live on ?

        1. My point too. Hopefully arriving mid-December and covid-free due to isolating at home apart from quick trips to local shop for fresh food.

    2. Ruby, I take your point, how ever if England are saying travel is only legal if necessary, doesn’t this put the onus on the Airlines to find out if the the flight is necessary, if not are they aiding and abetting? Madeira are doing their bit by testing on arrival.

  6. I understand your altruistic motivation however every Madeiran I have talked with on this subject are unanimous. Stop tourism and keep us safe.

  8. aromasammy mentioned it already (see further up), The Lisboa court decided in an unpredictably honest way about the PCR tests. How does it affect the tests at Madeira airport?
    Here is the original link to the court decision about the Azores case:

    http://www.dgsi.pt/jtrl.nsf/33182fc732316039802565fa00497eec/79d6ba338dcbe5e28025861f003e7b30?OpenDocument

    I feel very happy that a Portuguese court dared to judge.

    The “new cases” reported daily in Madeira might increase due to difficulties to avoid contamination in the lab.
    The same happened in a lab in Augsburg, Bavaria. 97% of false positive testing.

  9. How often have you railed against expat Brits who, in your opinion, act as if they know better than the Maderiense? Quite often. What are you doing? Exactly the same thing. They don’t want tourists here at the moment. What do you want? A holiday. Look in the mirror…you can see the type of folk you seem to dislike so much…..

  10. I worked in healthcare for 40 years, read the medical journals, and talk with former colleagues. The idea that the PCR test is giving false positive results 97% of the time in pure lunacy. There are jobs in the Trump White House for believers of this ridiculous pseudoscience. These ideas are just as crazy as the proposition that the earth is flat, the moon landing was a hoax, and that windmills cause cancer (one of Trumps crazy assertions).

  11. We love Madeira and have been coming for the past twenty years. We were there in January, but had to cancel our trip for our 60th Wedding Annversary in June at the Cliff Bay. Another one for January is clearly out too.
    .
    It is clear that Madeira want us back but out of respect for the lovely people who look after us we would only come when it is safe for them and ourselves. We have been all round the World, but we have never enjoyed anywhere as much as we do your great Country and great people. Stay safe, in all our interest.

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