Portugal Did Not Revise Its COVID Death Statistics from 17,000 to 152

8th July 2021

Portugal Did Not Revise Its COVID Death Statistics from 17,000 to 152

The 152 count only refers to a small fraction of casualties (Getty Images).

The Claim

A recent court document proves that Portugal only recorded 152 deaths due to COVID-19, rather than their previously recorded 17,000.

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Emerging story

In June and July, a number of articles appeared online claiming that a court in Lisbon, Portugal, had revised its country’s COVID-19 death figure down to 152 from 17,000. These articles claimed that the supposed new figure had come to light after a Portuguese citizen had filed a petition for verified mortality data.

The articles also used screenshots of this document as alleged evidence that the country’s COVID death statistic stood at 152 as of April 18, 2021, with the text appearing in its original Portuguese.

A number of social media users have since posted the claim that only 152 people have died of COVID-19 in Portugal. These posts have gained hundreds and, in at least one instance, over one thousand interactions.

A supporting image within the article body

Misbar’s Analysis

Misbar’s investigation concluded that the document the articles are using as the evidence does not revise the overall COVID-19 death count of Portugal. Instead, it states that 152 COVID-19 death certificates were issued by the country’s Ministry of Justice by April 18th, 2021.

The main evidence that the articles attempt to use for their claim is this screenshot from the Lisbon court document:

This is a translation of that text:

After analyzing SICO's replica base from 01-01-2020 to 18.04.2021, we managed to ascertain the following distributions so far: Between 2020 and 2021, 152 death certificates were issued by physicians working for the Ministry of Justice (INMLCF) whose basic cause of death was due to COVID 19 according to the following distribution.

Of the 152 death certificates, 132 deaths the underlying cause was U071 (COVID 19-virus identified) and 20 deaths the underlying cause was U072 (COVID 19 not identified in the laboratory).

Note that the text does note stat that it is revising the official COVID-19 death statistic of the nation of Portugal. Instead, it states that 152 death certificates were authored by doctors who work for the country’s Ministry of Justice, which does not reflect the country’s entire health system. Naturally, the Ministry of Justice only employs a small number of Portugal’s doctors.

We also translated every other instance of the Lisbon court document mentioning 152 deaths and could not identify the document saying that that number was a revision of Portugal’s overall COVID-19 death statistic.

According to high-quality sources, such as Reuters, the current COVID-19 death toll in Portugal stands at over 17,000, and this figure has not been revised down.

As the Lisbon court document, which is the only piece of evidence used in the articles, does not claim that Portugal had only seen 152 COVID deaths, we rate this story as false.