Portugal with highest new COVID-19 cases in EU: study

Portugal's number is more than double the EU's daily average, which is 447 new cases per million inhabitants, according to calculation by analysts from Our World in Data, a research project based out of Oxford University, Xinhua reports.

As for the number of new daily deaths per million inhabitants, Portugal is the eighth country in the European Union, with an average of 1.97 COVID-19 deaths in the last seven days.

The EU average of new daily deaths is 1.43, while the world average is 0.2.

According to data from the Portuguese Directorate-General of Health (DGS), 76,183 COVID-19 cases were identified between April 26 and May 2, which represents a 27-fold increase compared to the same period last year.

In early April, a joint study by DGS and the National Institute of Health Doutor Ricardo Jorge, a public organization of the Ministry of Health, found that the COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal currently maintains a «very high transmissibility,» with mortality showing an «increasing trend.»