Health Minister Thanos Plevris announced a one-week extension of the coronavirus measures in force from New Year's Day in restaurants and entertainment.
"There is a great concern. It appears that the Omicron peak happened much earlier than expected but there is tremendous pressure on the National Health System from the Delta variant. While the Omicron variant is at 90 percent in the community, the percentage is [more evenly] divided in hospitals as there are citizens who were infected with Delta during the Christmas holidays. So, it makes sense, in order to monitor the phenomenon, for the measures to be extended. We will wait for the scientists recommendations but there is a common view among all the scientists that the measures should run for 20-25 days and therefore, if there is a decision to extend them, it will be for another week," Plevris explained.
Scientists and the health ministry are concerned because of the more serious Delta cases in hospitals and the "hard indicators" of the pandemic, namely the number of intubations and new deaths, which do not appear to be improving at present.