Greece confirmed 882 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, 99 of which are known to known clusters, setting a new negative record for the third consecutive day.
Seeing the rising threat, Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis set a curfew from 00.30 to 5am as of Saturday night in areas of Level 3 (increased monitoring) and Level 4 (increased threat).
Night-shift workers and those suffering from emergency incidents are exempt from the curfew which is aimed at seeing a “reduction in gatherings at night”. Mr Mitsotakis explained that partial curfews were already in effect in several European cities.
READ MORE: Greece sets new negative COVID-19 record with 865 cases
Mr Mitsotakis also made the wearing of face masks mandatory, indoors and outdoors. He said face masks were “the cure before the vaccine”. Wearing face masks is already obligatory in all indoor public areas in Greece.
“To put it plainly,” he said, “from now on a mask is required to enter a cafe or restaurant. The mask may be removed only after we are seated. And, of course, the ban on clientele standing only in closed spaces is still in effect.”
In Greece, there have been 28,216, infections in total.
There are currently 90 patients intubated at hospitals of an average age of 66 years of which 92.2 per cent have an underlying condition or are aged 70 and over.
The new cases recorded overnight come mainly from Athens and Thessaloniki where there were 290 and 188 new cases respectively. Serres had 65, Larissa had 40, Ioannina had 23, Lesbos 40, Ioannina 23, Lesbos 17 and Kastoria had 15 cases. Iraklio in Crete, and Kozani and Rodopi in Northern Greece registered 10 cases respectively.