Worries about rising pandemic toll

Health professionals are worried about the rise in deaths and emergency check-ins due to the coronavirus.

On Saturday, 35 died from complications of Covid-19; the average over the past week has been 32.

Patients on ventilators are 333, at late June levels, still far from the highs of 800+.

Matina Pagoni, president of the Athens-Piraeus hospital doctors union, says that deaths are very high given the season and it could get worse once autumn, and colder weather, sets in. 

In an interview with TV station Open Sunday morning, Pagoni added that the restart of schools and universities will increase mobility, and congregations, and urged that all returning holidaymakers who hve not already done so ve vaccinated.

And while the number of people on ventilators is less than half than during its peak, Pagoni said that the health system is already feeling the pressure.

Across the country, 68% of the emergency rooms dedicated to the pandemic are filled and in some local hospitals it is closer to 90%.

That’s because some of the emergency rooms used at the peak of hospitalizations have been repurposed back to their earlier use, as hospitals also faced a backlog of untreated cases, including postponed surgeries, when they prioritized Covid-19 treatment.

Pagoni said she hopes there will be no more surgery postponements with the new surge in Covid-19 patients.