{"id":19573,"date":"2021-06-26T12:34:56","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T09:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/?p=19573"},"modified":"2021-06-26T12:34:56","modified_gmt":"2021-06-26T09:34:56","slug":"delta-variant-threatens-to-destroy-another-european-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/archives\/19573","title":{"rendered":"Delta Variant Threatens to Destroy Another European Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Saturday, June 26, 2021 07:00 AM<\/div>\n

By Henrique Almeida and Joao Lima<\/p>\n

(Bloomberg) —<\/span><\/section>\n

A\u00a0month ago, hotel manager Hugo Goncalves was gearing up for a bustling summer with almost all rooms at the Tivoli Marina de Vilamoura Resort in the Algarve fully booked.<\/p>\n

Goncalves hired new staff and stocked up the bar and kitchen to be ready for an influx of visitors, particularly\u00a0British travelers, after a disastrous 2020. That was before Portugal was abruptly taken off the U.K.\u2019s green list<\/a> of countries, meaning those returning\u00a0would need to quarantine, and the country\u00a0started to look like a hotspot for the highly contagious\u00a0delta strain of the\u00a0coronavirus.<\/p>\n

Then\u00a0the Portuguese government\u00a0imposed travel restrictions on Lisbon residents during weekends, making it\u00a0harder for locals to travel to the warmer beaches \u2014\u00a0and hotels such as the\u00a0Tivoli Marina\u00a0\u2014\u00a0in southern Portugal.<\/p>\n

\u201cFour weeks ago, we had more than 90% of\u00a0our rooms booked but now it\u2019s just over 30%,\u201d said Goncalves. \u201cI don\u2019t understand how Portugal stopped being safe from one day to the next.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A worker disinfects\u00a0sun loungers at Quarteira Beach in the Algarve region, Portugal.<\/div>\n

Just as the northern hemisphere summer season\u00a0kicks off\u00a0and the European Union\u2019s Covid-19 travel certificates become\u00a0available, Portugal\u2019s path back to normality \u2014\u00a0along with the rest of the region\u2019s \u2014\u00a0is at risk of being upended by the delta strain.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a race to administer vaccines and limit the fast-spreading mutation, with countries trying to avoid the prospect of a summer with only light restrictions escaping their grasp.\u00a0While some governments desperately want to put out the \u201cOpen for Business\u201d\u00a0sign, there was a gloomy assessment<\/a>this week from the EU\u2019s disease prevention agency.<\/p>\n

It said a fast relaxation of restrictions could cause a \u201csignificant increase in daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths.\u201d Right now, Europe isn\u2019t seeing that, and\u00a0the number\u00a0of new cases has\u00a0plunged,\u00a0but pressure on governments to relax measures, along with complacency, could set back the virus battle.<\/p>\n

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  Saturday, June 26, 2021 07:00 AM By Henrique Almeida and Joao Lima (Bloomberg) — A\u00a0month ago, hotel manager Hugo Goncalves was gearing up for a bustling summer with almost all rooms at the Tivoli Marina de Vilamoura Resort in the Algarve fully booked. Goncalves hired new staff and stocked up the bar and kitchen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19574,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19573\/revisions\/19574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bestinsurance.gr\/a1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}