Deaths due to Covid-19 rose to 93 and new intubations increased in the week January 1-7, 2024, the weekly epidemiological report of Greece’s National Health Care Organization EODY said on Thursday.
The hard indicators of Covid-19 that is deaths, hospital admissions and intubations, show an increase, the reported underlined.
At the same time, the influenza activity is increasing with 14 new serious flu cases and 2 deaths in the same ISO week 01/2024.
SARS-CoV2 virus – COVID-19 infection
ISO 01/2024 (January 1-7, 2024)
- Infections & Re-infections: 44,477 (+124)
- Deaths: 38,470 (+93)
- Hospital Admissions: 1,679 (-139)
- Intubations: 78 (+8); new intubations: 37 (+6)
- PCR+Rapid: 220,182 (+29,007)
- Positivity (PRC+Rapid): 20.2% (-3%)
Positivity in all tested samples showed a decrease compared to the previous week.
The number of admissions (n=1,679) showed a 15% increase over the average weekly number of admissions in the previous 4 weeks (n=1,466) and was slightly higher than the number of admissions in the corresponding week of 2023 (n=1,632).
The number of new intubations (n=37) showed an increase over the average weekly number of new intubations over the previous 4 weeks (n=28) and was lower than the number of intubations in the corresponding week of 2023 (n=53).
The number of intubated patients with COVID-19 infection is 78.
There were 93 deaths of Covid-patients who had a median age of 86 years (range 56-96 years). The number of deaths showed an increase compared to the average weekly number of deaths in the previous 4 weeks (n=72) and was lower than the number of deaths in the corresponding week in 2023 (n=169).
The most frequent BA.2 sub-variant was EG.5 (42%) followed by XBB.1.5 (16%), BA.2.86 (14%) and JN.1 (13%) (provisional data)
Viral load surveillance in municipal wastewater showed an increase in SARS-CoV-2 virus circulation in 5 out of 10 areas tested.
Note that according to official data in the period September 2023-January 2024, there were:
- 1,029 deaths (two of the patients were vaccinated)
- 378 intubations (two of the patients vaccinated)
Influenza virus
Influenza positivity in the community (sentinel network) remains above 10% (seasonal threshold for initiation of epidemic influenza activity according to ECDC) and shows an increasing trend.
14 new serious cases with hospitalization in ICU were recorded, while 2 new deaths from laboratory-confirmed influenza were recorded.
Four severe cases of laboratory-confirmed influenza with hospitalization in the ICU were retrospectively reported, as well as one death.
A total of 49 people with laboratory-confirmed influenza have been hospitalized in the ICU since the beginning of influenza surveillance, and 11 deaths from laboratory-confirmed influenza have been recorded.
166 influenza strains have been subtyped from hospital and community sentinel samples, of which 163 (98%) were type A and 3 (2%) were type B. In total, 142 type A strains have been subtyped at the two Influenza Reference Centers .15 (11%) belonged to subtype A(H3) and 127 (89%) to subtype A(H1)pdm09.
Influenza syndromes (regardless of the pathogen).
The number of influenza cases per 1,000 visits showed an increase compared to the previous week.
Respiratory syncytial virus – RSV
RSV positivity showed a slight decrease compared to the previous week.
