FILE – A young woman wearing a face mask looks at her phone on a subway train in Lisbon, Jan. 6, 2022. With one of Europe’s highest vaccination rates and its most pandemic-battered economies, the Spanish government is laying the groundwork to approach the virus in much the same way countries deal with flu or measles. Similar steps are under consideration in Portugal and the United Kingdom, whose government says that the omicron wave has peaked.
LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s government is under fire over its plans to let people infected with COVID-19 cast their ballots at polling stations in an upcoming election, as officials struggle to square the right to vote with the duty to protect public health.
Eligible voters who are infected and confined at home — as many as 600,000 people on the day of the Jan. 30 election, officials estimate — are to be allowed to vote in person as an exceptional measure, the government announced Thursday.
However, it recommends that they vote only in a 6 p.m.-7 p.m. time slot, when polling stations are traditionally less busy, Justice and Interior Minister Francisca Van Dunem said after a Cabinet meeting.
She said that it is not operationally practical to establish separate corridors and booths in polling stations for infected people.
She said she trusted in the “historically exemplary behavior” of the Portuguese to ensure voting goes safely and smoothly.
Portugal on Thursday officially reported more than 56,000 new daily cases of COVID-19 — a new record amid a recent surge blamed on the omicron variant.
Mask use is mandatory in indoor public areas, and the General Directorate for Health issued a recommendation that infected people should wear either surgical masks or FFP2 masks — but not cloth masks — in polling stations. Furthermore, they should get there either on foot or by car, avoiding public transport.
