Epidemiology

The Hellenic Police (ELAS) is expected to announce a ban on all public gatherings aimed at marking the anniversary of the December 6, 2008, killing of teenager Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police officer in downtown Athens.

At the proposal of the Chief State Health Inspector the Minister of Health, will be authorized to order mandatory isolation for persons suffering from contagious diseases, as well as mandatory quarantine for their contact persons, on the basis of an assessment of the existing epidemic risk and the spread of the respective contagious disease.

Although two packages of strict measures for the fight against the epidemic were introduced in just a few days, of which the decision to transfer upper primary and all secondary school students to online classes, a member of the Crisis Staff, epidemiologist Dr. Predrag Kon, said last night that we were late.

The truth is that the coronavirus, like all viruses, is transmitted at all hours of the day, all around the world - despite initial speculation or hope - regardless of the season. It is the height of summer and Greece has more cases per day than it had in the spring.

Turkey plans to re-open schools on Sept. 21 with measures in place to counter the coronavirus after three months of online courses for the new education year, Education Minister Ziya Selçuk said on Aug. 11.

Italy ordered travellers arriving from Croatia, Greece, Malta and Spain to be tested for Covid-19 on Wednesday and added Colombia to a list of countries under a complete travel ban amid growing concern over new infections.

Kon told RTS that the numbers still show that we have no "zero" situation anywhere.
He pointed out that the creation of collective immunity without vaccination would take several years, so much is expected from the vaccine.
"Miracle is expected from a vaccine, and miracles generally don't happen", Kon pointed out.

COVID-19-associated hospitalization rate has been declining but severe infection care is rising in Turkey, the health minister has said.
"There has been a 32 percent decline in hospitalization over the past three days," Fahrettin Koca wrote on Twitter on Aug. 11.

The Government on Tuesday decided to extend the state of alert by other 30 days, Health Minister Nelu Tataru made the announcement.