U.K. VARIANT DRIVING DEADLY THIRD WAVE

The news that Portugal is to be classed as a “high risk” nation and its citizens subjected to two weeks’ hotel quarantine when arriving in the u.k. hardly registered in the Iberian country Wednesday as it fights a devastating third wave of the virus.

Although the measures have been put in place in an attempt to prevent the Brazilian variant reaching Britain, it is the fast-moving British variant that is driving the crisis in Portugal.

record death tolls were set each day last week, rising steadily from 152 on Jan. 17 to 275 on Jan. 24, while on Saturday 15,000 new cases were registered in 24 hours. The local news is full of pictures of exhausted medics and ambulances forming long lines outside hospitals, and the government was considering a formal request to the Eu to provide extra medics.