Greece recorded a total of 4,943 cases of Covid-19 on Monday.
The record for the highest number of coronavirus cases recorded in one day in Greece was broken on November 9, when 8,623 cases of Covid-19 were diagnosed.
In the past day, a total of 103,253 coronavirus tests have been administered, including both PCR and rapid tests, bringing the positivity rate in Greece to 4.78%.
A total of 116 people with the virus passed away in the country on Monday alone, compared to the 79 people who died with the virus on Sunday.
Just seven of Monday’s cases were identified during routine Covid-19 testing of tourists at the country’s borders.
Currently, there are 714 patients with the coronavirus on ventilators in Greece, which is one fewer than yesterday.
Omicron Covid variant in Greece
Greece reported two more cases of the Covid-19 strain Omicron on Monday, bringing the total number of the known cases in the country to three.
The two new cases are related to people in Athens who recently traveled from South Africa, authorities said. They added that all the individuals’ contacts since arriving in the Greek capital are being monitored.
The first case of the Omicron variant was confirmed on Thursday by Minister of Health Thanos Plevris.
He said that a Greek citizen who recently arrived from South Africa had been diagnosed as having the variant on the Greek island of Crete.
The Minister assured the public that all quarantine and tracking protocols have been observed.
The news comes as evidence is mounting that Omicron may be producing less severe infections than previous Covid-19 variants, like Delta.
On Saturday, the South African Medical Research Council published a report about an Omicron-driven outbreak in the Tshwane district in South Africa’s northern Gauteng Province, one of the first areas in the world where Omicron has overtaken Delta as the dominant strain.
The researchers wrote that in the last two weeks there has been an “exponential” rise in caseloads, but significantly, the surge has not corresponded to a significant uptick in hospitalizations and deaths.
“The relatively low number of COVID-19 pneumonia hospitalizations in the general, high care, and ICU wards constitutes a very different picture compared to the beginning of previous waves,” the report said, examining data from the Steve Biko and Tshwane District Hospital complex.
1,386 coronavirus cases in Attica, 708 in Thessaloniki
Of the 4,943 new coronavirus cases recorded in Greece in the past 24 hours, 1,386 were located in Attica, home to the Greek capital city of Athens.
A total of 411 cases of Covid-19 were identified in central Athens on Monday.
In Thessaloniki, the second-largest city in Greece, 708 cases of the virus were identified today.
Over 900,000 cases of the coronavirus recorded in Greece
Since the beginning of the pandemic, a total of 971,148 cases of Covid-19 have been recorded in the country, including all those who have recovered from the virus.
Of the 714 patients intubated currently, 79.6% are over the age of 70 or suffer from preexisting conditions. Their average age is 64.
The majority of those who are on ventilators in Greece, or 79.97%, are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Additionally, a total of 3,566 patients have been discharged from ICUs around the country since the beginning of the pandemic.
The 116 new deaths recorded on Monday bring the total number of coronavirus-related fatalities in the country to 18,716.
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