Greece confirmed 209 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, with 11 of these identified at entry points to the country.

The National Public Health Organization’s new cases on Friday bring Greece’s infections since the pandemic began to 8,138. Of these, 1,802 are linked to travel abroad and 3,752 to an already known case.

There are currently 28 Greeks in ICU, with an average age of 68 years.

There were also three more deaths recorded on Friday, bringing the total number of deaths in Greece to 238 since the pandemic began in the country.

Most of the new cases – 192 – were infected domestically and 24 of these are linked to travel within Greece, while five were linked to known clusters of infection. The regions of Attica and Thessaloniki continue to lead in infection numbres (76 and 49, respectively), while the next-highest concentrations were registered in the regions of Pella (11), Lesvos island (6), and Karditsa and Pieria (5 each). The rest of reported regions had between 1 and 4 confirmed cases.

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Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced on Friday that the state would freely offer both the vaccine against the coronavirus for all  Greeks as well as face masks for pupils and teachers.

“I want to be absolutely clear, the vaccine will be offered for free to all the Greek citizens, we do not know yet if it will be one or more vaccines and when they will be available. We hope the sooner and not the later,” he said.