Covid-19: High Schools to Open Across Greece on Monday

Greek Minister of Education Niki Kerameus announced on Wednesday that all high schools across Greece will open for in-person classes on Monday, April 12. The move signals that the country’s Covid-19 lockdown, in place since November, is slowly easing.

In order to avoid the spread of the coronavirus in Greece’s high schools, all students and teachers will be required to conduct self-tests for Covid-19, which are available for free in pharmacies across the country, each Monday and Thursday.

Greece recorded 3,445 cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday, which marks 864 fewer instances of Covid-19 than the 4,309 cases that had been diagnosed in the country on Tuesday.

A total of 95,179 coronavirus tests were conducted across the country during the day, marking a new record for the amount of tests given in Greece in one day.

The positivity rate has now dipped to 3.61% in Greece, down from 5.7% yesterday.

The total number of patients being treated with intubation, which involves placing a tube down a patient’s throat to assist breathing, reached 749 in Greece on Wednesday.

This figure is two fewer than the 751 patients undergoing the invasive treatment in the country yesterday, on Tuesday.

Tragically, 75 people suffering from the coronavirus passed away in the country over the past 24-hour period, which represents four fewer than those who died with the virus on Tuesday.

1,670 cases of Covid-19 diagnosed Attica alone; 398 in Thessaloniki

Of the 3,445 coronavirus cases recorded in Greece in the past 24 hours, 1,670 were located in Attica, home to the Greek capital city of Athens.

Instances of the virus were particularly high in the center of the city itself, where 431 cases of Covid-19 were identified Wednesday.

Piraeus, Athens’ port city, had a total of 261 instances of the virus on Wednesday.

Tests showed that in Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city, a total of 398 cases of Covid-19 had been diagnosed in the last 24 hours.

Total 285,015 coronavirus cases in Greece since the start of the pandemic

Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 285,015 cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in the country, including all those who have recovered from the virus.

Of the cases diagnosed in Greece in the past seven days, just 94 are associated with foreign travel and 2,711 have been linked to contact with a known case.

Of the 749 patients intubated currently, 84.1% are over the age of 70 or suffer from preexisting conditions. Their average age is 68.

On Wednesday alone, 524 people with the coronavirus were admitted to hospitals in Greece.

Additionally, a total of 1,805 patients have been discharged from ICUs around the country since the beginning of the pandemic.

The 75 new deaths recorded on Wednesday bring the total number of fatalities in the country to 8,607; 95.6% of those who have passed away with the virus were over the age of 70 or suffered from underlying health issues.