When asked about the end of the mandatory use of the mask, the President of the Republic recalled that it is a decision for the Assembly of the Republic, which will only meet again in plenary in September, so he argued that the extension of this decision “is a good coincidence, after allowing a few weeks to pass”. “I was one of the first to put it on and I'll be one of the last to take it off. I want to see the August and September numbers first,” Marcelo Rebolo de Sousa told journalists, who was speaking during a visit to the Alcabideche vaccination center, in the municipality of Cascais.

Whilst monitoring the vaccination of 12 and 15 year olds, the President of the Republic called on young people for "those who have not yet been vaccinated, to please get vaccinated” before the start of the school year, in order to avoid contagion and the spread of the virus and contribute to greater coverage of national citizens with complete vaccination. “If young people and parents want more prevention than cure, they have to twist their lives and sacrifice the holidays, speed up this process and have the double vaccination. If they hesitate, they wait to see what happens to the neighbour, then, at the beginning of school, they are subject to getting Covid”, he stressed.

Today, the country prepares to enter a new phase of the easing of lockdown, the President of the Republic also appealed to the “common sense” of the citizens, defending that “greater freedom means that there is greater responsibility”. “There will be a return from vacations and the beginning of the school year, there will be more movement of people from other countries and we know that there are countries where vaccination is not at our level, so we will need to monitor the next four weeks very carefully and then, continuing the vaccination, we will see exactly what is happening in other places and whether it affects us or not”, explained Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, who prefers to remove the mask only in September and wishes people to “use it as much as possible even on the beach”.

The President of the Republic was pleased “to see thousands and thousands [getting vaccinated]”, considering that “it is always good to open up spaces of freedom” to the population and praised the work of the Task Force, created to manage the process of vaccination, and the Directorate-General for Health.