FILE PHOTO: Test tubes labelled "COVID-19 Test Positive" are seen in front of displayed words "OMICRON SARS-COV-2" in this illustration taken December 11, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Pedro Ramos confirms that the Ómicron variant is already in Madeira

Tobi Hughes·
Madeira News

The regional secretary for Health and Civil Protection confirmed, just now, that the first case of the Ómicron variant in Madeira has already been confirmed.

Confirmation reported this morning, this is an English citizen who arrived in Madeira in recent days and is isolated in a hotel.

The sample has already been analyzed by the National Institute of Health Doctor Ricardo Jorge (INSA), which confirmed that it was the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

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Tobi Hughes

18 Responses

  1. I thought you had to have a negative PCR test before you left the UK in order to fly to madeira, so why are folk arriving with Covid

    1. You do not need a test if you are double vaccinated – Madeira safe does not require a test, a mistake in my view.

      2. Time for Madeira and rest of theworld to scrap the VIP pass for the vaccinated covid importers.

    2. Negative PCR is only required for mainland Portugal. You only need a double vacation certificate and to test every seven days whilst there.

    3. Not if vaccinations are up to date and full cover. Then it is a PCR up to 72 hrs before or lateral flow up to 48 hours before arrival. If they haven’t taken care in before / between that, it is still possible to develop Covid

  2. Omicron can only help. As it is essentially a common cold it is the closest thing we have to a natural vaccination.

    A strong and good leader will let it lap on Madeiran shores instead of using it an excuse to destroy the economy at a critical time like so many others will do.

      1. I feel that the Omicron variant signals the death throes of covid. The older strains up to and including Delta are rapidly vanishing and Omicron appears to be a much weakened strain with symptoms much like a common cold(which is a corona virus) or dose of flu(which is not a corona virus).

  3. Maybe they should also have a negative test before leaving the UK, as is the requirement on the mainland. This island needs to stop bending over backwards to accommodate tourists and protect people living here. Enough is enough!

  4. UK isn’t the origin of Omicron but, inevitably, it would arrive with someone coming into Madeira. Yes, everyone should be tested before arrival, as on the mainland. However, I imagine most UK visitors are self -testing before departure and/or using another test to access bars, restaurants etc on the island. We have free antigen tests available to test daily, if wanted. Yes, we know few places are checking, but the age group and type of traveller currently is of the cautious nature. We spent €25 each on private antigen tests before arrival expecting to need this for eating out and could have risked testing positive on arrival.
    It’s a balancing act. Madeira’s economy needs the tourists. The island’s residents are protected by the current measures, and by far the highest number of internal transmissions are in the age groups with whom tourists are generally not mixing.

  5. The death rate in mainland is only 10 times greater than in Madeira. Surely they must be doing something good that Madeirean authorithies should mimic.

  6. Couple of things. Judging by what scientific advisors to the UK government and WHO are saying. Not sure if Omicron is as weak as people might think.
    And as to the UK person who brought it in. They spent at least two hours at a UK airport and 4 hours on a plane. How clean were these environments. Given the short turn round times of planes at airports. No way can they be completely clean. So the poor person may have been tested and vaccinated and caught it in transit.

  7. they could just be unlucky. the incubation period of omicron is very short (shorter than previous variants). it is perfectly possible for a person to take a lateral flow the day before fly, only to arrive on the island and then test positive.

    on the plus side, the fact that you need to test weekly (if you wish to integrate within Madeiran society) does mean that they are picking up cases that otherwise may have slipped through.

    i think the current approach of madeira is pretty good, but i don’t think it would hurt to insist on a negative ‘fit to fly’ lateral flow before arrival… these can be bought for as little as £20 and submitted online, so not huge in the scheme of things.

    even though my wife and i are triple jabbed, we still did fit-to-fly lateral flows the day before we came out, not just to make sure that we weren’t importing anything bad, but also so we didn’t have to immediately head down into town to queue up for a lateral flow (although the queues now seem to have disappeared, but this wasn’t so much the case a 10 days ago when we planned all of this).

    as always, damned if you do and damned if you don’t. keeping madeira running is always going to be a balancing act which means just as many will fall on one side of the balance as the other.

    1. Quite right AL, self-responsibility is the most important way to prevent the spread of the virus. However, anyone climbing on an airplane should be tested. Vaccination means nothing when it comes to spreading the virus. And for Madeira in particular, they are very well organized at the airport and a test on arrival would eliminate most of the “imported cases”. One thing they should do is giving airlines slot windows, to spread arrivals better.

  8. It appears that any flight coming directly into Madeira doesn’t require testing for CoVid prior to boarding. Being fully vaccinated is the only requirement. Shame on ARM officials for not better protecting their citizens, especially with the UK now reporting record numbers, mostly driven by the latest variant that appears to be evading vaccinations in many cases. We will be entering Madeira via mainland Portugal where they do require CoVid testing prior to going there.

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