LISBON, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Portugal is set to further downgrade on July 1 its coronavirus response to a "state of alert", the lowest of three emergency levels, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said on Thursday.
Under the Portuguese Constitution, the other two levels are "state of emergency" and "state of calamity". On May 3, Portugal downgraded its coronavirus response to "state of calamity" from "state of emergency," which was declared on March 18 and renewed twice, on April 2 and April 16.
The downgrade "does not mean to resume normality...we have to keep the rules," Costa said in a statement at the end of a Council of Ministers meeting.
Costa said the downgrade will be possible because Portugal is experiencing a "stable scenario" in the rate of COVID-19 transmission and "there was no significant increase in new cases."
The exception will be the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon, which will move to the "state of contingency", an alternative level generally used in cities level, which is an intermediate state prescribed by the Basic Law of Civil Protection.
Portugal registered six more deaths from COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 1,549, in addition to 311 new infections, reaching 40,415 confirmed cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Enditem
