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GREECE IS EXPERIENCING a fourth wave of Covid, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has warned, as daily infections hit their highest since the pandemic began, with hospitals starting to buckle under the pressure of rising infections.
The country notched up a record 8,613 new Covid-19 cases in 24 hours, the National Organisation of Public Health said, after cases more than doubled in less than a fortnight.
46 people died of the disease yesterday, after 65 a day earlier.
“We are facing a fourth wave,” which “mainly concerns the unvaccinated,” Mitsotakis said yesterday evening after talks with his visiting Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte.
He said the government was “focused on increasing vaccination numbers” and “taking measures without resorting to a lockdown”.
The north of the country, where inoculation rates are lower than in other regions, has been the worst hit in recent days.
In the second city of Thessaloniki, management at a key hospital fighting Covid said it was overwhelmed with patients.
Nikos Kapravelos, head of the emergency department at the Papanikolaou Hospital, at the weekend warned against a new spike similar to during the second wave in November last year.
Health authorities on Friday made Covid passes mandatory for open-air restaurants and cafes, as well as indoor public spaces.
Face masks are still mandatory indoors and at large outdoor gatherings.
However, in several regions, the measures are not being respected, especially in some Orthodox churches where images in the media have shown maskless worshippers kissing icons and not observing social distancing.
Father Timotheos, spokesman for the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, on Monday claimed on Mega TV that “sacred icons do not transmit the virus or disease”.
Senior health ministry official Marios Themistokleous on Monday warned cases were on the rise in Greece, even if 61.2% of the population had received two vaccination jabs.
He said appointments for a first dose of the Covid vaccine had increased sharply in recent days.
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Are we not similar to those numbers per capita? I wonder if their lower vaccination rates might explain the larger impact on the health service
@Mickety Dee: Yes it seems that way, we have less than 100 in ICU , they have nearly 500 intubated.- population 2X Ireland’s
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Icons have special marvel power to protect the faithful, free spit and dna with every kiss, the spudity of the church is not surprising, if they keep uttering advice like that they wont have a live audience,
@David Dineen: Ooh! You’re such an iconoclast…
At the country-level, there appears to be no discernable relationship between percentage of population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases in the last 7 days . In fact, the trend line suggests a marginally positive association such that countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people. Notably, Israel with over 60% of their population fully vaccinated had the highest COVID-19 cases per 1 million people in the last 7 days. The lack of a meaningful association between percentage population fully vaccinated and new COVID-19 cases is further exemplified, for instance, by comparison of Iceland and Portugal. Both countries have over 75% of their population fully vaccinated and have more COVID-19 cases per 1 million people than countries such as Vietnam and South Africa that have around 10% of their population fully vaccinated.
@Nathan Notusingfackebook: What is the relationship of severe covid and vaccination?
have your say