Le Portugal, pays voisin de l'Espagne. Et pourtant une crise de Covid-19 complètement différente. Pour Sue, citoyenne britannique résidant au Portugal, trois choses expliquent sa meilleure gestion que celle de l’Espagne : le virus y est arrivé plus tard, dans un pays mieux préparé, et surtout bien plus apte à coopérer : "Portugal was the last country in Europe to actually get their first patient. When China had the problem, because we have a very high population here, they were very quick to close everything down. They had what they call a state of alert for a very long time here. In terms of people complying, there does not seem to be a problem at all. Everybody seems to be very calm about everything and there is no panic buying as such. Portugal was a dictatorship until 1975, so it is not that long ago that people had to do as they were told. So, people in Portugal are probably still in that frame of mind. The parties are pulling together, they are not rallying against each other as is quite normal in Portugal."
Néanmoins, l'économie en pâtira. L’inquiétude croissante d’une récession se fait ressentir : "They are expecting to have a drop of GDP of 3.7% this year, so they may well go into recession. It was up 2.2% last year, so it is really sad because they had managed to get out of their crisis. Hopefully, it will recover quite quickly."
Certes, au Portugal les mois les plus touristiques de l'année sont à venir, mais reste à savoir si les restrictions et la peur de voyager seront passées d’ici là.