Greece Has Higher Prevalence of Omicron than Both the US and the UK

As the Omicron COVID-19 variant spreads wildly across the globe, Greece is among three countries with a higher prevalence than the U.S. and the U.K..

The Omicron variant is now dominant in Greece, Ireland and Denmark, whereas that was the case in the United States and the United Kingdom in the past 28 days based on data from Johns Hopkins University, CNBC reports.

In the past week, Greece reached a daily record of over 50,000 cases of COVID-19, with the total number of almost 1.5 million since the beginning of the pandemic.

High prevalence of Omicron in Greece

Greece recorded a rolling 7-day average of 3,468 cases per million people in the week ending January 6.

On Tuesday, the National Public Health Organization (EODY) reported a record 50,126 new daily cases and 61 deaths. By Friday, the figure had declined slightly, and the same on Saturday.

Currently, about 67 percent of the population is fully vaccinated, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

On Friday, Greek Health Minister Thanos Plevris said that no patients with confirmed Omicron variant had been intubated in hospital so far.

Nevertheless, the Omicon variant cases put pressure on the Greek health system, with Plevris saying that the government takes measures to ensure there are enough hospital beds for new admissions.

This was after health authorities announced that more than 90 percent of cases in Greece were now the new, highly transmissible Omicron variant.

The Greek health minister also warned that even though the Omicron cases are milder than previous variants that does not mean they are mild.

Number of cases drops on Saturday

With the percentage of the Omicron variant prevailing, the number of COVID-19 cases in Greece shows a slight decline daily in the past few days.

On Saturday, EODY confirmed 37,676 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, with 87 of these identified at entry points to the country.

Since the pandemic began, Greece has confirmed 1,489,024 infections (daily change: +2.6 percent). In the confirmed cases of the last 7 days, 524 infections are related to travel from abroad and 1,814 to other confirmed cases.

There are also 65 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours, bringing the total of pandemic victims to 21,328. Of these, 95.1 percent had an underlying condition and/or were aged 70 or over.

A total of 634 patients are on ventilators in hospitals. Their median age is 64 years and 79.8 percent of them have an underlying condition and/or are aged 70 or over. Of the total, 544 (85.8 percent) are unvaccinated or partly vaccinated and 90 (14.2 percent) are fully vaccinated.

A total of 3,820 patients have been discharged from ICU since the beginning of the pandemic.

In addition, 522 COVID-19 patients were admitted to hospital in the last 24 hours (daily change: -14.71 percent). The average admission of patients with COVID-19 to hospitals over the last seven days was 522.

The median age of new infections is 36 years (range: 0.2 to 106 years), while the median age of the deceased is 78 (range: 0.2 to 106 years).