简体中文
A medic with Evaggelismos General Hospital watches the concert of the ERT (Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation) Modern Music Orchestra in Athens, Greece, on April 20, 2020. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)
Greece announced on Tuesday that a 14-day curfew will be imposed on the town of Kranidi in the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece in addition to the nationwide lockdown after 150 COVID-19 cases were diagnosed in a local hotel hosting asylum seekers.
The curfew will be in force every day between 20:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. local time, and the hotel will be entirely sealed off, Deputy Minister for Civil Protection and Crisis Management Nikos Hardalias said after discussing the issue with local officials.
A total of 470 asylum seekers, mainly from Africa, were staying at the hotel, which is used as a refugee accommodation facility.
They were tested on Monday after a 28-year-old pregnant asylum seeker from Somalia who had been accommodated in the hotel tested positive for the coronavirus.
The hotel has been quarantined since last Thursday as a precautionary measure after a staff member tested positive for the virus, although the individual had not been on duty for the past 12 days, according to the Greek national news agency AMNA.
Of the 150 new confirmed cases, two are employees at the facility and all of them are asymptomatic, Hardalias stressed.
Over the past few weeks, confirmed cases have been reported in two other refugee camps near Athens.
In addition to the cases in Kranidi, Greece has registered six new cases since Monday, bringing the total to 2,401, Sotirios Tsiodras, the Health Ministry's spokesperson for the pandemic, said at a daily press briefing in Athens.
The death toll now stands at 121, as five more patients have passed away since Monday, he said.
Some 59 patients are currently being treated in intensive care units (ICUs), and 46 people have been discharged from ICUs in Greece, Tsiodras said.
Since March 23, the country has been in lockdown, which is expected to be lifted on April 27.