Coronavirus now affecting younger people, says Professor Tsiodras

Sotiris Tsiodras, the Health Ministry's coronavirus spokesman, pointed out that Greece's health authorities will continue to implement a strategy of increased checks and inspections to ensure that Greek citizens continue to observe measures diligently, at an extraordinary televised briefing on the pandemic on Tuesday evening.

The infectious diseases professor said that over the last two months Covid-19 cases have clearly affected younger people, even though the majority of these patients are asymptomatic. Imported cases are also on the rise, he said, because the country reopened to tourism on June 15.

He insisted, however, on the fact that domestic cases are on the rise, and said that "young people need to understand that although they are rarely severely affected, we only partially understand the full range of long-term manifestations of the virus."

Even though the current increase in cases has not put extraordinary pressure on the national health system, there is also a noticeable rise in ICU patients, the doctor noted, and warned that the "situation can quickly get out of hand."

Evidently, the coronavirus "is spreading in the summer just as easily," he said, "and we don't yet have immunity," as less than 1 pct of the population has so far been infected," according to three different antibody studies, he stressed.

The professor then announced Tuesday's stats, as Greece registered 121 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, with 5 of the new cases confirmed during checks at the country's air and land entry points, while 26 were detected in Attica region and 47 in Thessaloniki region. Another 14 regions in Greece registered less than 10 new cases each.

The number of all cases totals 4,855 (54.6 pct men), of which 1,325 are connected to travel abroad and 2,403 to already known cases. At least 650 of the total case are still active.

Thirteen individuals are intubated in hospitals, of whom three are women. Their median age is 70 years, while a 69.2 pct has an underlying health condition or are aged 70 or over. A total of 129 patients have been discharged from ICUs since the start of the outbreak in Greece in January 2020.

With no new deaths registered in the last 24 hours, fatalities stand at 209 since the pandemic broke out in Greece, of whom 67 were women, and the median age of all the deceased was 76 years. A 95.7 pct of all the deceased faced an underlying health issue or was aged 70 or over.

Some 599,709 diagnostic tests for Covid-19 have been carried out in Greece since January 1, of which 6,796 (1.13 pct) were positive (including rechecks of same people).