Portugal's PRO.VAR national association of restaurants has launched the "Serving Heroes" initiative to prepare and deliver meals to health professionals who are fighting COVID-19 in the country's six hospitals.
Sixteen restaurants in the cities of Braga, Coimbra, Lisbon and Porto plan to serve around 5,000 lunches to health professionals for 10 working days.
The initiative is financed by Betano Portugal, an online platform for sports bets.
According to research conducted by PRO.VAR involving 621 catering establishments, 61.4 percent of the country's restaurants lost more than half of their revenue at the beginning of the year in comparison with 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Portugal's restaurants have been ordered closed since Jan. 15. They can operate only on a delivery or takeaway basis.
As the world is struggling to contain the pandemic, vaccination is underway in some countries with the already-authorized coronavirus vaccines.
Meanwhile, 242 candidate vaccines are still being developed worldwide -- 63 of them in clinical trials -- in countries including Germany, China, Russia, Britain and the United States, according to information released by the World Health Organization on Feb. 9.
Source: Xinhua
