49 new confirmed cases in the last 24 hours have increased the total number of coronavirus infections to 331, Greece’s authorities said on Sunday afternoon. Eight people are incubated in Intensive Care Units and, ten people have been discharged from hospitals, spokesman of the National Health Organization. He appealed again for restriction of movement and called on those arriving form abroad to “14 days quarantine.”
Four people have died with the latest victim as 53-year-old man from West Macedonia.
Next to the 49 new cases are also another 54 tested positive in the previous 24 hours. The number of news cases is 103. There have been belated release of the confirmed cases as some are been conducted in private hospitals.
44 patients did not travel to a country with an outbreak neither did they come in contact with people who were ill.
51 patients are hospitalized with 8 of them being intubated in hospitals in Athens, Thessaloniki and Patras.All of the intubated patients are men with an average age of 67 years and had serious health problems.
So far, around 4,000 samples have been tested for coronavirus since the beginning of the outbreak last month.
“Most confirmed cases are in Athens,” Tsiodras said, who repeated the recommendation to restrict movement and crowding.
He also called for health surveillance of any citizen returning from a foreign country and restriction of contacts for 14 days.
He recalled that the main type of transmission of Covid-2019 is through respiratory droplets.
He said that in the next two weeks “we will know more about the progress of the disease in the country and estimated that a period of 2 months would be necessary until the country can breath again.
Tsiodras stressed that the purpose of the measures is to avoid crowding and that the elderly belonging to vulnerable groups are concentrated in churches. For this reason, he said he hoped that Holy Synod will take ‘the right decision” at its extraordinary meeting on Monday.
Despite the warnings, mostly elderly people continue to flock to churches and even receive the Holy Communion where dozens share the Sanctification with the same spoon.
i see dead people #κλειστε_τις_εκκλησιες_τωρα pic.twitter.com/cOjFIRy6yF
— μικαέλα με το κάππα 🇬🇷 (@queenmikaela_) March 15, 2020
An outrage broke on Sunday morning when state ERT TV broadcasted live the Sunday litourgy from Thessaloniki and showed people receiving the Holy Communion.
According to media, the Prime Minister contacted Archbishop Ieronymos and asked him to take measures, like opening the churches only for “personal purposes” and for unavoidable ceremony under very limited number of people.
The conservative government has not dared to intervene in religious issues with respect to COVID-19 and left it up to the Greek Orthodox Church to decide about the issue.
For more information about the coronavirus in Greece and all the measures imposed, check with our special category CORONAVIRUS.
