January 4th local time, the Greek National Public Health Organization announced that 427 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Greece in the past 24 hours, with a total of 140,526 confirmed cases; 54 new deaths were added on that day, with a total of 5,011 deaths.
Greek media reported on the 3rd that six passengers who recently arrived in Greece by plane from the United Kingdom were diagnosed with mutant COVID-19.
They also became the first mutant virus infected in Greece.
According to the report, these six are five Greek citizens and one foreign citizen. They arrived in Greece from the United Kingdom on flights on December 21 and 22, 2020 and were tested for the coronavirus quickly at Athens International Airport.
Test results show that all six people are infected with the novel coronavirus.
Subsequent laboratory tests found that all six people were infected with mutant COVID-19.
Four of them were infected with the same mutant virus found in the United Kingdom, and the other two were infected with the same mutant virus found in Thailand.
They are all asymptomatic and are now quarantined in hotels.
According to the report, they will also be tested for the novel coronavirus again within 10 days, and can only be released from quarantine if the test results are negative.
At the same time, the passengers on the same flight as these six people are under epidemiological surveillance.
After the emergence of the mutant virus in Britain, many countries around the world announced that they would take measures to close their borders and ground round-trip flights to the United Kingdom.
However, flights between Greece and the United Kingdom remain normal, only requiring entry from the United Kingdom to be quarantined for 10 days.
In addition, with the “Brexit” agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union, the Greek Civil Aviation Authority issued the latest directive on January 2 that the United Kingdom has been included in the list of non-EU countries that are allowed to enter Greece, and the measures will take effect this week.
Regarding the cases of mutant virus infection in Greece, infectious disease expert Gogos said that the public does not need to panic excessively. He said: “The virus knows no borders.
As the mutant virus will also spread from one country to another as the population moves, it is not surprising that there will be cases of mutant virus infection in Greece.
These infected people do not make a fundamental change in epidemiological data, but because the mutant strain is more infectious, the public needs to be highly vigilant and protected.”
