BORDER REOPENS as Portugal lifts January closure at 18 land crossings with Spain

PORTUGAL will reopen its land border with Spain tomorrow(May 1) two days ahead of schedule.

Prime Minister, Antonio Costa, announced the country would be moving into a relaxation of COVID restrictions this weekend.

Travel was curtailed in January when Spain and Portugal both suffered from a ‘third wave’ of COVID-19 infections.

The only exceptions to the closure at 18 checkpoints have been people border-hopping to go to work in addition to delivery lorries and emergency service staff.

Costa said that people coming from countries with high infection rates will still have to be quarantined.

“We must remember that nothing is guaranteed in the future. It’s a daily fight. We can’t lose what we have accomplished,” he added.

After reaching almost 13,000 infections per day in late January, the number of new daily cases in Portugal now averages around 500.

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Alex Trelinski

Alex worked for 30 years for the BBC as a presenter, producer and manager. He covered a variety of areas specialising in sport, news and politics. After moving to the Costa Blanca over a decade ago, he edited a newspaper for 5 years and worked on local radio.