Greece records 4,696 new coronavirus infections and 38 deaths in a new high

Predictions say that local COVID-19 cases are likely to rise even more in November

Medical staff stand outside a mobile COVID-19 vaccination team set up by Health Ministry in the northern city of Thessaloniki, Greece. Photo: AP Photo/Giannis Papanikos

31 October 2021 12:48pm

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Greece confirmed 4,696 new coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours, with 13 of these identified at entry points to the country, the National Public Health Organization (EODY) said on Saturday.

The country has recorded has recorder 739,448 infections since the beginning of the pandemic. In the past week alone, 159 infections have been linked to travel from abroad and 3,023 to local transmissions.

Sadly, in the last 24 hours Greece listed another 38 deaths, bringing the total of pandemic victims to 15,894. Of these, 95.4 per cent had an underlying condition and/or were aged 70 or over.

Currently, a total of 404 patients are on ventilators in hospitals, Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANS-MPA) reported. Their median age is 65 years and 79.7 per cent have an underlying condition and/or are aged 70 or over. Of the total, 344 are unvaccinated.

Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases are expected to rise further in November as the fifth wave of the pandemic peaks, according to professor of microbiology Athanasios Tsakris who is also a member of the Health Ministry’s committee of experts on the pandemic.

“This fifth wave of the pandemic will evolve until December, in a similar way to the second epidemic wave last year in the corresponding period”, he told Skai TV.

“From the fourth we passed without a break to the fifth wave in Greece and we see it evolving first in northern Greece and then in the other regions”.

Moreover, the viral load detected in Thessaloniki’s wastewater has increased to alarming levels, a study revealed on Saturday explains.

The report is a joint project conducted by scientists from the University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) and the city’s water and sewage company (EYATH) showing that samples collected on 25 and 26 October present a 34 per cent increase in comparison with the two previous measurements.

“We are now above the alarm threshold, very close to the maximum values we recorded last April. For several weeks there has been a relatively mild upward trend around high viral load values, but now we see that this rate is accelerating, which means that the virus is spreading to the community much faster,” head of the team, AUTH rector Professor Nikos Papaioannou, told ANA-MPA.